Moving to an urban place
I have a couple thoughts today about being in a much more urban setting than Norman. This is not to say that these things don’t exist in OKC, or maybe even in Norman, but I didn’t really encounter the poverty there than I’m encountering here. This morning there was a patient like of about ten men outside the plasma donation center. This isn’t any particular kind of anomaly, and I think everyone knows someone who has made a little extra cash that way when they’ve been broke, but the thing that got me thinking about this particular line is that every man in it was African American. This made me think a couple things: none of these men have traditional jobs, because it was 8:30 and the line certainly wasn’t moving (some of them were sitting on the ground); it also made me wonder if there isn’t a plasma donation center in the white suburbs where all the white people go to donate body fluids for money. I don’t know.
The other is that on my way from my apartment to the bus stop, which is one block away, I pass the Anglican church I mentioned in an earlier post. This church has a fenced courtyard in front and I noticed this morning that there were two people curled up against the building at the far end of the courtyard. I’m guessing they were homeless, although it’s always possible that they were sleeping outside the Anglican church for the fun of it. When I came back this afternoon both of them and all their stuff was gone. This makes my heart hurt.
Day 3.
First off, I have to mention the wait for the bus this morning. As usual, I got to my stop at 4th and High this morning. There was a guy standing around, but it wasn’t particularly clear if he was waiting for the bus or just waiting. for. something. I waited a bit and the bus came. I headed to get on and he called to me, “have a nice work day!” to which I slowly replied “have a nice…day.” This was honestly because I couldn’t see that he would be heading to work and I didn’t want to do that dumb thing where someone says “Hope you feel better” and you say “You too!” only to realize that of course they are feeling just fine. As I sat down on the bus though I started to feel like I had been a bit classist or racist or both by assuming that because there was this African American guy with a wife beater and baggy jeans on leaning against a building that he wasn’t heading to work. I’m still not sure what I should have said though. He wasn’t acting like he was going to work…
The rest of my day went without mental reproach until the end. This morning we discussed the research project our students will be doing in more detail, including “the method.” I don’t think you care what “the method” really is, do you? I had lunch with Elizabeth and Lauren and Sarah at the Wexner center, which was enjoyable if a bit quiet. Elizabeth, who just graduated from her bachelor’s program at OSU, invited us all to this mexican place for $2 margaritas tonight. I declined. This afternoon Nan Johnson came in and gave us a wonderful presentation about rhetoric, which she named “the rhetorical point of view.” She is a really, really engaging speaker.
The second moment of mental reproach for me today was one of those moments where you open your mouth and what you hear come out is someone else’s voice. Today it was the 12 year girl who always tattle-tells voice. I piped up at the very end of the workshop and asked Scott Dewitt if he couldn’t in fact just add the people who weren’t on the roster yet to our desire to learn (D2L) site. He was quite polite in telling me that he’d had some problems doing that in the past, but it was totally clear that he was less than pleased with my desire to suddenly say that. Should have kept my mouth shut!! Such is life. I think he’d probably encountered the problems we did when we first started us D2L back in 2005 and maybe just hadn’t tried since. I’ve not had any problems adding and deleting people from my courses…and now as I post this to the world I’m going to let it go!
