The Fight for Minimum Wage

I had two goals for this summer before it began: make money and get dreads. The first is pretty easy to understand. I have a car and it costs money. I also have great plans for European travels and an eight foot surfboard. The second was less important. I would like to have dreads at some point in my life, and it’s not really the sort of hairstyle that goes well with looking professional or being some poor kid’s mother. I figured that if i got them with my first paycheck of the summer, i’d have a good two and a half months for them to mature so that by the time school started in the fall they’d be decent looking. That was the extent of my summer plans.

At long last the warm months arrived (who am i kidding? they never really left) and i began my job hunt. I started with all of the places i could walk, figuring that way i wouldn’t spend any money commuting. I put in several applications and then headed to the beach. The next day i got a call from Sonic asking for an interview. Awesome. I went to the interview, was exceptionally charming, and the lady seemed to like me pretty well. She said that i’d have to interview with the other manager as well, though, and could i come back tomorrow. I agreed and left feeling fairly confident of a job. The second manager did not seem nearly so impressed with me, however, and instead of offering me the job, informed me that she had other interviews to do and that she would call me next week. Next week? I had thirty dollars in my bank account and my gas tank was half empty.

That was on Saturday, so the following Monday i looked up the local Chick-fil-a’s and found that there were two within a ten minute commute. I headed to the first one, filled out an application, and was about to hand it back to the cashier when the manager spots me and asks me to sit down for an interview. He saw that i worked at Chick-fil-a in Columbia, and says that he’ll call my manager there and let me know by the end of the day. I hadn’t driven more than five minutes down the road when he calls me back. Apparently Ashworth (my old manager) loved me (yay!) and David (the manager i just talked to) asked me to work 8-3 the next morning. Awesome!

I am once again a Chick-fil-a employee. I get Sundays off and i’m spared the awkward “i don’t know how to do anything” phase, but i have to kiss my dreams of dreads goodbye because Chick-fil-a is “high class” fast food and they have a strict dress code. (What the crap? It’s fast food! I should be able to do my hair however i want.) So i spend my last day of unemployment bumming around the house. During dinner Chick-fil-a calls me. It’s Matt, the other manager. He informs me that, upon going over the schedule, they don’t have space for me. Awesome. BUT he’d talked to the West Ashley Chick-fil-a and they have a shift for me. Awesome? Where’s West Ashley? A google maps search revealed that there were two Chick-fil-a’s in what could be considered the West Ashely area, and a facebook search led me to believe Matt was referring to the one by the hospital, the one that was 30min and a tank of gas a week away from where i live. Awesome. That same google search also revealed a number of Chick-fil-a’s closer, but should i really risk a given job while i went and applied to closer locations?

My plan for Tuesday was to work on the week’s dinner plans and my grocery list in the morning and then head over to the West Ashley Chick-fil-a after the lunch rush to talk to Al (the only other distinguishing feature of the Chick-fil-a where i apparently had a job). I’d then pick up the groceries on the way home and hopefully have work the next day at a job with $40 a week less profit and no dreads, but one where i could start right away. Besides, guaranteed Sundays off ARE pretty nice.

I never made it to West Ashely. I was putting the finishing touches on my grocery list when Sonic called. I got the job and training is at eight on Saturday. Awesome. I guess i’ll get dreads this summer after all.

Apology

Dearest Bed,

Forgive me, for i have been unfaithful. I let that vile tempter, Caffeine, steal me away from your warm embrace. I believed its cruel lies, its promises of more time and increased productivity. I drank its poison and fell prisoner to its grasp. I wanted A’s, but received unproductive hours of distracted twitching. My body revolted. It knows you are my one true love and it punished my betrayal relentlessly. My stomach churned; my head throbbed, and my heart pounded as if to break  out of its cage. However great my pain, it was far less than i deserved. I deserted you, my beloved, and for that i am eternally sorry. Regret and repentance bleed from my very pores. The one thing i long for more than anything else, i cannot ask of you. No one can take your place and there is no other. To be wrapped in your thick blankets once more, my head laid upon your down pillow, it’s more than i can ask for, more than i deserve, but it’s all i want. You’re the only one forever. I’m sorry. I beg your forgiveness from the depths of my being. I am yours alone. Forgive me.

Becky

Project 365?

With the approaching New Year there has been a lot of talk on photography forums and similar venues about Project 365. This is a common New Year’s resolution among photographers during which you take (at least) one picture a day for a year. In one instance the project intrigues me: i would end up with an entire year of my life documented in one really giant photo essay. In another it intimidates me: carrying a camera is a bit of a hassle and being tied to it every single day for a year seems daunting. (On the other hand i definitely need to carry my camera more often if i’m going to grow in my photography in any significant sense.) Then there will be days where i won’t be inspired at all, days when i’m traveling, or days when i’m sick, and i just won’t want to mess with trying to find a good image. I could just take a crap shot on those days, but then if i’m just going to take 365 crap images do i  really need to spend a whole year doing it? I’m also afraid that the essay i end up with will be tediously boring. Just think about all those people who took a picture of their face everyday for a year? Are those great images that are fun to look at? But then if i’m going to be a photographer, and that is a very real possibility, then isn’t it about time i started taking pictures and embracing challenge?

**Update**

I decided to not do a project365, but to just take a picture everyday until i get tired of it… which may turn into a whole year, but it seems unlikely. In any case you can view the photos here.

Finals Week

Biology on the Windows

Survival Package

Music Theory

Lightweight

As i walked out of class into a light drizzle today i overheard a guy say, “I never wear shoes. Don’t you know that by now?” and a girl reply, “Never? Not even when you go downtown?” My heart lept  at the familiarity of a conversation i’ve had almost verbatim countless times, and i eagerly glanced toward the guy’s feet….which were housed in brown, size ten, Rainbows.

Becky vs MART371: Part III of III

Returning the Hard Drive

My screening had gone without glitch and it was about time to return the external drive i had checked out. It was just a simple task of transferring all of the data from the borrowed drive to my own and erasing everything from the former. Of course there was still the issue of incompatible file systems.

-Brief pause to explain file systems. Computer nerds, feel free to go for coffee-

Hard drives are like closets full of shoes. Ms. NTFS organizes all of her shoes by function: flip flops for everyday, boots for cold days, and stilettos for days when walking won’t be necessary. Ms. HFS organizes her shoes by color: brown for brown belt days and black for black belt days. Ms. FAT32 keeps all of her shoes in carefully labeled boxes that are only big enough for small to average shoes because she doesn’t like anything bulky. Now growing up Mr. Mac and Mr. PC had always had this really strong rivalry going on such that when Mr. Mac married Ms. HFS and Mr. PC married Ms. NTFS they each stopped talking to the other’s wife (though for all i know they never really talked in the first place). Mr. Mac won’t even say hello to Ms. NTFS in the grocery store, and Mr. PC almost ran over Ms. HFS in the parking lot because he was so busy pretending that she didn’t exist. Ms. FAT32 managed to remain neutral throughout all the bickering, so both of the men still talk to her. She is picky about large shoes though, and anything over 4GB won’t fit in her closet.

-and we’re back-

I have a PC; consequently my external drive is formatted NTFS. All of my video work throughout my time at USC will be done on a Mac and saved HFS. I didn’t want to buy a new drive, and FAT32’s file size restriction makes it unacceptable for use with video projects. This left me with the rather simple idea of partitioning my hard drive into 80% NTFS and 20% HFS.

I began my project like any responsible student who’s shed a few too many tears over lost documents- with a trip to Kurtis’s room to back up my external drive. During the seriously, excruciatingly, long copy process (29 gigs at 12mbps = enough time to watch an episode of Gilmore Girls) i did the necessary pre-project googling. Then, all backed-up and educated, i was ready to begin.

My first step was to reduce the size of my NTFS ‘partition’ on the drive to 400gigs leaving 100gigs of free space (unformatted, unconquered, neutral territory) for the HFS partition. By reducing the size rather than reformatting the entire drive i was able to leave my data untouched saving myself a good forty minutes of recopying. Once this process was complete (i’m pretty sure it took some unreasonable amount of time), i plugged my drive into Jena’s Mac to format the empty space into HFS. Conquer unclaimed land while leaving the claimed stuff alone, this shouldn’t be a hard task. Apparently it was. Mac has some sort of ego trip going where it can’t contain itself to unclaimed lands but must rewrite the entire drive to do anything.

I was still pretty attached to my forty minutes and was not ready to give them up to recopying just yet, so i pondered. Had i had a pipe the picture would have been complete. More googling, surely there is a way for Mac to format only a portion of the harddrive, or maybe PC would consider taking one for the team and formatting in HFS. No on both accounts. These two were determined to make my life difficult. I called my brother. Apparently Linux will format all file systems, freaking Switzerland. Needless to say this information was not particularly helpful seeing as i don’t have Linux and getting it would be much more hassle than i was willing to put up with. At this point my imaginary pipe was extinguished, so i let Mac reformat my entire drive 20% HFS and 80% free space. Then i plugged it back into my PC, formatted the free space NTFS, and put another episode of Gilmore Girls on while i copied everything over again.

Becky vs MART371: Part II of III

The Project

Wednesday September 23, 2009
I had just finished a grueling week and a half of shooting (like really, i think i experienced more stress in that week and a half than in the rest of my pretty cush life combined) hindered by class, work, weather, lighting, DV tape loss, tripod malfunction, and a non-existent partner. I had the entire afternoon free to edit, and that is how i spent it- at least until nine when the Mac lab closed. It was around quarter to nine when i wanted to transfer my project from the lab computer’s hard drive to my external drive. It was 13 til when i decided that the Mac was not going to recognize my external drive and we should try my partner’s (this was the one day of the entire project he participated). The Mac recognized his drive but encountered an “unknown error” after spending ten minutes “copying.” The files were too big for a flash drive and the lab was closing, so we were forced to trust the kid working the desk when he said the computers wouldn’t be wiped. We both had busy weeks so we made plans to finish editing Monday afternoon before the screening on Tuesday.

Thursday September 24, 2009
Work.

Friday September 25, 2009
The Mac lab closes at five on Fridays and my Still Image group project lasted from 2 until 5:15.

Saturday September 26, 2009
The Mac lab is closed on the weekends. Work. Next week’s work schedule came out and i realized i have been scheduled for the first Monday ever. I was scheduled to work until seven and the lab closes at nine. I spent the rest of my shift trying to figure out how i was going to finish the project (no one would take my shift and the person who owed me the most hours didn’t have any availability on Mondays, go figure) and wondering whether i would be forced to rely on a partner who had been flaky from the start. My only idea was to somehow contact Jimmy, king of Media Services, epic problem solver, and savior to many a distraught media student with a looming deadline.

After digging around on the internet for a while (i didn’t even know his last name) i found an email address, quickly but carefully spelled out a plea for help (something along the lines of “Jimmy, you are my only hope”), and sent it off into the void praying that it would reach its intended recipient without running into too many Jawas or angst ridden teenagers.

Sunday September 27
I went about my morning and tried not to freak out. That afternoon i got an email, and Jimmy was there to save the day again (that man needs a cape for real!). He opened the Mac lab for me, and i figured he’s such a hero i should explain my dysfunctional external drive to him. After viewing the problem he informed me that my problem was incompatible file systems (oh yeah! Rick told me about that once…) so he let me check out a Mac external hard drive (what? media services has hard drives?), locked me in the lab, and left me to my editing. Four hours later i am done, complete, finished, and throwing a party. I didn’t even care that Taco Bell was the only food still open because i was DONE!

Monday September 28
My partner bailed on me when i tried to meet up to show him the video and write up the paperwork, so i just wrote up the crew log honestly and figure it’s his problem now.

Tuesday September 29
Screening! So nervous, so good.

Becky vs MART371: Part I of III

The Backstory (which won’t really become relevant until Part III)

I grew up in a very computer literate, very PC family. My first memories of PCs include choosing windows ninety-something instead of DOS from the dual-boot screen, peeling the dot strips of off the printer paper, and listening to our canary imitate the dial-up connection sounds. My first memories of Macs didn’t occur until my video class junior year of high school and included frustrations such as “why doesn’t control+c copy?” “there’s no right click?!” “where are the rest of the programs?” and “how do i get my CD out of the computer?”

Over time i began to learn my way around a Mac, but it’s hard to catch up on 17 years of learning or replace the knowledge of a dad who has programmed PCs since the days when data was stored on punch cards. For this reason (and the fact that PCs are cheaper, i don’t feel like buying another version of Photoshop, and Mac commercials really grate my nerves) i own a PC. My membership in the PC fan club would create no issues if i were a business major. In fact, it would simplify matters because Microsoft Office really doesn’t run that well on Macs, but that’s beside the point. I am not a business major, but a media arts major.

Now legend has it that back in the day (probably around the same time my dad was flipping though files of punch cards) PCs couldn’t do graphics worth beans. No like seriously, it was bad. So naturally all the people interested in doing graphics bought Macs in order that they might have some hope of getting results that were worth beans (or bacon depending on the metaphor). Over the years, however, PC has improved its graphics abilities, and Adobe has taken to writing its wonderful software for both of the warring OSs such that i in no way feel inferior to my Mac-owning colleagues.

The art department, however, is somewhat less open-minded than Adobe (probably because their profits don’t increase through OS tolerance) which means that all the art computer labs are Mac and my video class requires the use of Mac-only Final Cut Pro (why can’t we use Adobe?).

Hacked for Your Own Good

I’m sitting in my friend’s room as he laments the unuse of his new free domain due to his total lack of blogging inspiration. During his lament he goes to his site expecting emptiness and an “under construction” layout, but  instead he discovers that some kind soul has taken it upon himself to highlight the website’s security flaws.

With a name like hackerpro79 how could you not go around helping people out?

Hello from Hampton!

Here’s a little life update for everyone back home. As (most of) you know i’m in New Hampshire for the summer with Campus Crusade for Christ. I’ve been here for approximately five weeks, and this is the second day in a row the sun has decided to shine and i’ve been able to sit outside without a jacket. It’s really quite wonderful. Anyway, here on project the average week looks something like this:

Sunday: Church at Faith Community and then free time
Monday: Work (i work at Happy Hampton Arcade where i either work at the snack bar doing basic fast food type stuff, work at redemption where i exchange tickets for prizes, or work in the parking lot where i tell people where to park and make sure they get it in between the lines) and then Weekly Meeting (your basic wednesday night church type thing with all 40 something of us).
Tuesday: Discipleship meeting (me and my discipler talk about life and Jesus), servant team meeting (i’m on the Operations Team which basically means we run the place as far as maintenance and everyday living are concerned), and then women’s time.
Wednesday: Work and then community group time which includes hanging out, outreach, and Bible study.
Thursday: Work and then women’s reflection and check processing (as a member of the Ops team i’m also in charge of project finances).
Friday: Work and then free time.
Saturday: Work and outreach.

There few average weeks on project, however, and some of the highlights have been

• the trip to a really cool lighthouse in Maine where i got attacked by a giant wave, and we shot off fireworks
• the Envy on the Coast, Anberlin, and Taking Back Sunday concert where all three bands came over to the house afterward, and we made them spaghetti and hung out
• joy riding in a parking lot and around a huge traffic cirlce in Paul’s and John’s cars
• all the great games that result from 40 college kids in a house with no tv and only two ethernet cables including: the spinning game (ask me about Christina), throw the ball, kick the ball, the laughing game (whispering makes everything even more hysterical), jump from the stairs to the door mat (talk to JZ about that one), catch the monkey that i flick from a spoon (christina again), triangle throw the ball, throw the ball in a complicated pattern assigned ahead of time, zip bong (Julian is king of this one), the chair game, and the signs game.
• watching fireworks from the comfort of our front porch while the rest of the town is stuck in traffic
• seeing fifteen people give thier lives to Christ as direct results of our outreach!!!

So yeah, that’s my life in a nutshell.