Volunteer Wal-Mart Employees Wanted

I refuse to use self-check out. When I first saw cashier registers being replaced at Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Shaw’s, I thought, “Brilliant! I can run into a store and buy stuff without human interaction. The days of making embarrassing Home Depot purchases and shuffling up to the counter while trying not to make eye contact with the cashier are over!”

Then I tried to buy gum and a headband using self-check out at Wal-Mart. First, the computer rejected my bagging technique, and the machine jammed up and asked me to seek the assistance of a Wal-Mart employee, which I did for about the amount of time that it would have taken for a cashier to scan my goods and send me on my way. By the time that was settled, I opened my purse to pay and somehow spilled all of my change across the Wal-Mart supercenter. I left the store embarrassed and confused, and assumed all guilt in the matter.

In the few similar experiences that I had with self-check out, I slowly got better at using the machine, but then about a year ago I realized something: I was in Wal-Mart employee training. Actually, I was a volunteer Wal-Mart employee. In fact, every consumer who had ever used self-check out was in training to be a self-sufficient buyer. Corporate America has just pinched our cheeks and told us that we were old enough to do the big-kid chores, and we, glowing with pride, dashed out the kitchen door to get started.

Now that I’m looking for a summer job, I like the self-check out concept even less. It is another machine that is replacing the need for human labor, which is good for the bottom line of the corporation, and bad for the displaced employee looking for a job. If an ideal corporation is a self-sufficient machine that turns all profit for no cost, where will potential customers go to earn money to pay for its products?

Currently, we are in an unfair bargain with the corporations we buy from. The only way to stop them from telling us what to buy and how much to pay for it is to put our money where our loyalties lie. That means buying from the people we know and respect most. It means waiting in line for one extra minute, so that a cashier can say “hello” to us, and scan our items, and bag our goods, and help us feel unflustered enough to not empty our change purses onto the floor, and say “thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart” as a paid employee should.

Little Love

You are so

Tiny
My little

Tiny house.

But still you


Beguile,
You

Sweet domicile.

I know these

Words are
To you

Short-selling,

My XS dwelling,

But know that you


Could not be improved

As a petit abode,
Unless you were

served

A la mode.




Photo by Rachel Salois

The Wednesday Post

I—self appointed Tiny House guru of Champlain College—am finally building a house on campus, which is cool, but harder than I could have imagined when we started this project (if I even could have imagined anything about what it is like to build a Tiny House) . Being a student activist who wants to help other people become student activists, I’m going to tell you what it is like to stand in the culmination of all the work I have put into planning this sustainability week. It is a complicated place, because it is the intersection of my two lives: the “college student doing finals and making summer plans” life, and the “eco-hero of the week “life.

6:45 AM: My alarm goes off in the middle of one of those dead sleeps where I realize later that I may not have moved (even a little) for the whole night.
7:00 AM: A bowl of Kix and a bowl of Frosted Cheerios for breakfast. Yessss…
7:13 AM: Shit! I have to leave. Must catch the 7:25 bus, but my teeth aren’t brushed and my backpack isn’t packed.
7:17 AM: Teeth briefly brushed. Backpack packed.
7:20 AM: At the bus stop in record time.
7:21 AM: Oh. Actually the bus doesn't come until 7:35. No matter, I’ll do my homework while I wait…
7:30 AM: (on the bus) Can’t read with angry republican financial radio talk show in my ear. Oh well. 2/52 pages of reading complete.
7:45 AM: Arrive at Little House worksite in Hauke Courtyard. Randy (the carpenter helping us this week) works hard pounding nails, making measurements, and cutting wood with power tools. I stand around watching him, because I am unqualified to operate all tools in the world.
8:30 AM: Randy gives me a job to do!
8:31 AM: Job is hammering nails into wood.
8:32 AM: Randy chuckles while I hammer away (generally) in the direction of the nail and manage to pound it in about 1/8th inch with about 12 strikes from the hammer. This is the hardest wood I have ever pounded a nail into.
8:33 AM: Randy leaves me to struggle in privacy, which I prefer.
8:45 AM: Have learned to fear nails, because if you hit them at a weird angle when you first start pounding them in, they ping off in crazy angles at 1,000 times the speed of light.
8:46 AM: Ask Randy for safety glasses, which pleases him immensely, because he is the safety inspector on the construction site where he normally works.
9:00 AM: Every nail I hammer in brings me closer to safety.
9:30 AM: Caity arrives and is equally unskilled at hammers, which means it is funny instead of life threatening now.
10:00 AM: It’s funny, but still impossibly hard. I have lost about 20 nails to lightspeed pinging now.
11:00 AM: Have gone back to observing work instead of participating in it, which is where I feel most comfortable at the moment.
12:00 PM: Etc.

INTERMISSION

1:00 PM: Eating Yak meat at Rob William’s Vermont Yak Company presentation. The sun is shining and I am eating free food.
1:15 PM: Time to get to my class that started at 12:30…
1:25 PM: (In journalism class) Being asked questions about the student newspaper. I feel proud but also nervous and defensive about answering them.
1:26 PM: Come off sounding more defensive than proud.
1:30 PM: Class gets out early.
2:00 PM Another class.

INTERMISSION PART II: ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES

3:08 PM: Class is not boring, I manage to sound intelligent after only reading two pages of homework, and we get out early. Yesss…
3:10 PM: Work at the seed-planting table. I love plants, so feel happy about helping people plant seeds in the sunshine.
3:30 PM: Asked by Chris Yoon and Connor to be in their Zombie movie.
3:31 PM: Get filmed walking into an elevator and screaming at Chris Yoon’s dead body. (No Chris Yoons were injured in the making of this movie.)
3:50 PM: Clean up and prepare to job search downtown.
4:10 PM: Inquire about summer work at Old Navy, Gap, Aeropostal, Bath and Body Works, and Famous Footware.
4:45 PM: Inquire about work at a little gift shop downtown where the girl at the counter says, “Let me get you an application,” and then proceeds to pull out a stack of 50 already filled out applications. Unable to find me a clean one, she prints another off and sends me on my way feeling less confident about the prospect of finding a summer job.
5:00 PM: Call mom to tell her about my job search.
5:15 PM: Bust out in tears on the phone over my nervousness about finding a job and guilt of wanting to pay to live in Burlington for the summer even though I don’t have a job yet. My deposit is due in two days if I decide to stay.
5:20 PM: Mom is calm and reassuring.
5:25 PM: Am all snuffly and puffy red-eyed in public, looking like an ultra-stupid idiot, but have at least stopped crying.
5:30 PM: Hang up the phone and decide to discreetly walk to the locker room to pick up my backpack, even though I look like a hurricane just hit my face.
5:31 PM: Run into my boss on the sidewalk. He is a very nice person, but I would rather not have run into him so shortly after the tear-busting incident.
5:32 PM: Escape by saying I had to go apply for a summer job. I hope he thought it was for a job as an actress in the crying scene of a Zombie video.
5:35 PM: See Lorelei with her shirt half on (everything was covered) in the locker room and run into her arms.
5:45 PM: Tell her my whole story. She cheers me up by telling me jokes and talking about this kid in a totally worse situation. I feel better.
6:25 PM: Get on the bus and go home.
6:45 PM: Get home and none of my roommates are there to greet me.
6:55 PM: Grab a fresh Pillsbury Homestyle Biscuit and my Spanish book and go next door.
7:00 PM: Tucker makes tacos while we discuss jobs, summer, and whether or not Peeps (like wine) get better with age. I also am semi-barely studying Spanish.
7:30 PM: Go back home and eat cod and carrots for dinner.
8:00 PM: Tell my roommates, Allyson, Carl, and Scott about how I won’t find a summer job and will die.
8:15 PM: Allyson finds me an ideal summer job about WRITING about TINY HOUSES, which are the two things I love most (not including any people who I love.)
8:15 and half a minute PM: Scream and kick the yoga ball hard because I am so happy.
9:00 PM: Start writing this blog.

19 Songs to Listen to Every Day and Never Get Tired Of

Everyone knows that the three keys to happiness are food, nature, and cute animals, so please use this list of fun songs to make sure you get your fix every day.

Songs Regarding Animals:

Hummingbird by Wilco
Three Little Birds by Bob Marley
The Pink Panther by pretty much every jazz band ever
The Chicken by Jaco Pastorius Big Band

Food:
Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson
Whipped Cream by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass
Sweet Tangerine by The Hush Sound
Pumpkin Soup by Kate Nash
Georgia Peaches by Lynrd Skynrd
Icecream by Lou Bega
Pour Some Sugar on Me by (a sweet remix) The Marginal Prophets
Whisky con Ron by Salsa Celtica
American Pie by Don McLean

Nature:
Island in the Sun by Weezer
Waterfalls by TLC
Sun Comes Up by John Legend
Monsoon by Jack Johnson
Food Chain by Eric Hutchinson
Sea of Love by Cat Power

A Better Way to Wait

This is me in my latest, almost-finished scarf project.


I never dream about being chased, or dying, or going to school naked. The only nightmares I have are about being late. I’m running to a bus for to a cross country meet or I’m a freshman in high school and my dad is driving me to piano lessons and I already know that I’ll never make it in time.

There’s no doubt that these dreams come from my obsession with time in real life. I like my schedule to fit neatly into boxes that can be stacked squarely atop one another. Unfortunately (or fortunately) real life is not an excel spreadsheet, so I have to wait 20 minutes for the bus on Tuesday nights and get up at 8:30 for meetings on Wednesday mornings even though my first class isn’t until 12:30.

That’s why I started knitting. Unless I have yarn and knitting needles, I can’t stop the TICK, TICK, TICK from going off in my head while I’m sitting at the bus stop. I consider myself a patient person, but even so, I can’t stand those boring parts of my day that are too short to start a project and too long to sit happily with my legs crossed and hands folded.

I’ve tried reading, but it doesn’t work as well. My stomach turns into smashed-up Jell-o for about three hours after trying to focus my eyes on a book for fifteen minutes in the car. My ipod does a slightly better job of entertaining me. I can listen to it for hours in the car without getting bored, but it only works when I’m in motion, because something is being accomplished just by me sitting on a pleather seat. When I’m waiting for the bus, I get frustrated and bored with my music much more easily.

Knitting though. On the car ride home from school last Saturday, I knitted for four hours straight. It also works in small doses, too. If I have five minutes to spare before I need to leave the house, I knit. If I’m not that interested in the television program I happen to be watching, I knit.

I still feel a little self-conscious about knitting before class because knitting has a lingering reputation of being a senior citizens-only activity, even though lots of young, hip people do it. Though from my experience, people tend to leave me alone with my needles and yarn without much comment when I knit in public.

I would recommend knitting to everyone, but I know that it wouldn’t be as satisfying an activity for some as it is for me. I will, however, prescribe this: a quiet, independent activity in which progress can be made. Even though knitting isn’t exciting, it does have a beginning, middle, and an end. The closer I get to finishing a scarf, the more furiously I work to complete it. This is why knitting is a better way to wait.

For some people, reading does the trick because every time they turn a page, they are getting closer to having mastered the story. In the car, an ipod helps me get restlessly to my destination, but when I’m not in motion it just doesn’t do enough.

I know that I spent less time being stressed this winter once I started knitting, and I would recommend that everyone find their own knitting equivalent. If you know you’re going to have to wait around at some point almost every day of your life, why not use the time to relax and feel accomplished instead of useless and stressed?

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Chic Eco Freak Seeks Equally Freaky; Superhero Capes Preferred

I used to be embarrassed about being tree hugger girl. Recycling girl. Compost girl. While standing in the dining hall during dinner hours and instructing people that they should compost their paper napkins I would think, “God, I look ridiculous. People must think I have no life.” Even though I knew that what I was doing was important, it seemed pretty boring and stupid at the time.

Then something occurred to me. Some people probably do think that I’m an annoying, plant-worshiping, environmental nerd. But a lot of people think it’s cool. It was pretty lonely standing next to a trash can of food slop in plastic gloves and an apron for a few hours, but in reality, I am one of over three million college students who volunteer (www.nationalservice.gov).

And there are so many activists in the world who are much more dedicated to their causes than me--Bono, Al Gore, Angelina Jolie. I’ve never thought, “Jeez, why can’t the Dahli Lama just give it a break for a second and play some Super Smash Brothers this weekend like a normal person?”

In fact, the only negative thought I can possibly have regarding other activists is guilt because they are much more generous with their time and resources than me. I discovered that there is no reason to be ashamed of being a passionate person. And as soon as I stopped being embarrassed about being an eco-freak, I was suddenly way more hip and interesting.
When I asked Ashley George, the coordinator for the Center for Service and Civic Engagement, one reason why someone should volunteer, she said, activism is “essential to the functioning of our communities and connect[s] us as human being to each other in a way that can’t happen in many other capacities.” Okay—so I didn’t feel particularly connected to humanity during my existence as compost girl, but that’s because I hadn’t found a type of service that could grab my attention. It turned out that environmental architecture was my thing.

With this in mind, I have an assignment for the semester: be a freak. Find an issue that gets you foaming at the mouth, (maybe Champlain being a dry campus, skateboard bans in your hometown, or littering,) and do something about it. Research it. Tell your friends about it. Write a letter to someone with power. Design a t-shirt about it. Meet other people who are interested in it. Bring it up in class discussions. Dress up as it for Halloween, and when people ask, tell them about it!

You might feel foolish and a little obsessed at first, but I think you’ll find that your friends respect you for not hiding the most interesting aspects of your personality from them. Yes, a few laugh and say, “dude, you’re wasting your time,” but in the end, other people will see that they are the absurd ones, not you. Especially for the guys, girls love it when you get worked up about animal abuse or homelessness or cancer research, so don’t be afraid to flout your cause. There are plenty of other bonuses to becoming an expert about an issue, too. You’ll have a subject to write your next research paper about. You’ll meet other people with the same interest as you. You’ll be able to volunteer your time for something that actually interests you. You’ll become aware of other related issues that may interest you even more. And you may find a career focus or lifelong hobby.

The only way to get motivated to do all these things, though, is to find an issue that gets you jazzed. So pick up a newspaper or watch the news--even the Daily Show can get you started. Once you get going, it won’t seem more like work any longer--more like a mission. Ever notice that Superman and Batman seem to be the most popular and lovable characters on their shows? It’s because everyone loves daring, generous, and optimistic people, so be the coolest person you know this year and do something BIG.