(A)part of the institution
It is a sad truth that no one ever does everything they mean to. And if such a person exists, their standards must be so pathetically low that they should feel fortunate they've no one to justify their existence to.
Intentions that fail to come to fruition can be divided into two groups: either it was a lack of effort, motivation, or capacity on the part of the one with the intention, or it was an inhibition imposed by an outside force. For example, this entry runs a high risk of failure by the first case, as I have been stuck around this second paragraph for a very long time. But I think I just figured out how to get out of it, so we shall see how that goes.
Failures by the second case, however, can be exceedingly more frustrating. I suppose that's mostly why I was so keen on attending a college with a good distance away from my home: I prefer to be in control of my own future. Call it mental masochism, but I much prefer to be able to blame myself when things go wrong. I ought to have been aware, though, that while living on my own could reduce the number of things that go wrong for me because of other people, such cases cannot be eliminated - contrary to what I might like, I do not control the world.
Moose: Are you here to interview?
Sarah: Yes, seems I've been sitting here all day.
Moose: Looked like they started to point to you to go in next, but then chose the other two.
Kind of what my life is like.
Sarah: So where are you from?
Moose: Gardner.
Sarah: No, I mean, originally.
Moose: Buffalo, New York.
Sarah: Ah, Ani DiFranco's from there.
My father says you can classify personality types in people from outside Buffalo by which recording artist they associate with Buffalo. It's a city that's had its fair share of successful groups, to be sure: one thing to be said for Buffalo, is that while most of the city slowly withers with the loss of employment opportunities, it is a city where the music still lives.
I was present in that particular basement hallway at the request of one whose name I drew a blank on when she appeared to greet me on her way to something else, who knows what, there were a thousand things happening that evening. I was not, however, to speak of what exactly it was I was doing. One of those secretive things, which might have been part of what drew me to it.
Srijan: Where are you off to?
Moose: I'm volunteering for a secret society.
Yes, that would have sounded cool. But that was not to be - nonetheless, it was hardly the only thing I volunteered to be a part of. Which was the other reason I was there - for the most part, all too few things had been happening in my life, and my presence at the location where things were happening was to amend this.
I spent an hour navigating a sea of bodies flooding the narrow walkways between the tables where no one was quite sure where anything was except right was in front of them. An indecipherable map assigned numbers to the tables, but these numbers were almost all hidden, and certainly not on the map - the map legend only listed the numbers and what was happening at each. The map itself was a useless jumble of coloured pixels that corresponded to nothing. Hence most of this preliminary hour was spent attempting to locate one table in particular which represented a theatrical society, hidden among societies represented by arbitrary Greek letters and the culinary enthusiasts.
Moose: I've been looking for you. You're hidden.
Gilbert: Well, we didn't pick the table.
Sullivan: Here to audition?
Moose: Absolutely!
The week since has been a long series of auditions and phone calls telling me what groups I have not made it into. It's the harsh reminder that, universally speaking, we really are not so special.
Tom: No matter what you do, there will always be someone out there that's better at it than you.
The constant reminder. It's because I'm not freakish enough to be the absolute best in the world at anything. And yet I still manage to come off impressing people sometimes. Like how I won thirty-seven consecutive games of FreeCell, once. My win percentage, however, appears to have stagnated at ninety-three percent. That's just what I'm capable of, and nothing more.
My name is Moose. I am six feet and one inch tall. I scored a twenty-two hundred on my SATs. I win ninety-three percent of my FreeCell games.
It's like that. Except on paper, no one really cares all that much. We're much more interesting as people than as statistical measurements of intellect, and probability charts predicting reactions to situations. Because that's all we are, when you reduce it far enough.
Teresa: We're all just filters. What we perceive of the world goes in, and likewise we respond - not to the universe precisely, but to our perception of it.
I've been perceiving that the population of Montreal tends to smoke a great deal more than the population of Buffalo. Either that or I didn't get out much. But I would walk places in Buffalo and not often have to hold my breath for fifteen seconds or longer as I passed a smoker approaching me from the opposite direction. Here it seems commonplace, almost but not quite so much as it was when I visited Spain. And I think it is the smoke which has been causing me to be somewhat stuffed in the nasal passages for most of my time since arriving here - I am not sick, you should all know that I have not ever and will not ever be sick. I do have allergies, though. It's just that they're usually gone by this time of year.
Life seems more peaceful since I got here. I'm not sure that it should, but it does. More tranquil, more distant. There are a number of things that make me feel very much a part of my surroundings, and I have not encountered them much here. I've been listening to music a lot more often than I did before. I've been writing and playing music quite a bit more, too. Which some people have found unusual for a student of science, but what do they expect, that I will spend my free time mixing chemicals and speeding down roads so that the police can pull me over and I can use the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle joke? No sirrah.
I have been co-forming a musical group with the intention of getting it to go outside the confines of the residences to play shows at places. The exact genre is still being worked out, but it promises to be conducive to the material I had for the Aristooks last year.
Moose: What did happen to the Aristooks?
Brian: I don't know, man, your guess is as good as mine.
Moose: Seemed it just sort of dissolved as soon as we all picked our colleges and it turned out we weren't all going to be in the same country next year. Of course, that one's mostly my fault…
Brian: Well, it wasn't my decision. We had something good going there, and I would have liked to play some shows before we parted ways.
It was like the Philadelphia Brotherhood. Didn't matter how many decided not to be a part of it any longer, if one fourth departed, it just wasn't the same with the other three.
There was a time when my ideal future involved every one of my close friends staying within the Buffalo region for the remainders of our lives. There was just something very appealing about that familiarity, the endurance of friendship, and the security of not having to make other friendships to make up for ones lost. And then something happened, and that wasn't at all what I wanted.
But what happened, exactly? Something drastic, for certain, because while, I estimate, eighty-five percent of the top ten percent of my graduating class stayed in the city of Buffalo, I have left the country. I was one of three of that group that I am aware of leaving the state. What am I doing here?
Kathleen: Trust me, you need to leave the nest.
Moose: I'm not all that attached to the nest to begin with. I'd just like to see that moving six and a half hours away from the nest is my best option.
My father would have liked to pin all the blame on her. He brought her name up in conversation enough times to choke a horse. Or annoy me, which is quite difficult if you're not aware. No, I have something to prove. I'm not telling what it is, though, because then if it turns out not to be true, you'll be none the wiser.
Damn, I hope I'm right about this.
-----
It was the last day.
An office that was hardly the most welcoming environment, but had some degree of familiarity to it. I put too much value on familiarity, I think.
Moose: Is Frank here?
Marc: No, I don't think Frank's going to be back until next week.
I was disappointed - I would not be present the following week, and I had not bade him a proper farewell as I had not anticipated his week-long absence. My one-time office-mate and I had some interesting discussions to break the monotony of our tasks. He was a competitive cyclist, and coached a cycling team as well as a number of private students. We shared a number of political and philosophical beliefs, as well as musical interests.
Frank: I don't know, I think I might retire from this in a few years. Move on to something else I've wanted to do for a while - there are so many interests I've wanted to pursue, this is just one of them, and I took this one more for the salary than anything.
At his age I could end up in the exact same position. Except instead of being an engineer retiring to pursue personal training, I would be a chemist retiring to pursue, say, spelunking.
During my stay at the company, I had purchased Charlotte, my mp3 player - the Creative MicroPhoto, a device much more sturdy and efficient than the iPod at a comparable or better price. No one has paid me anything to say this, I speak only as one who has owned both products and sees that one is better.
So I brought Charlotte in to my place of employment, along with a pair of portable speakers; hardly the finest speakers you'll find, but they were a gift. And from then forth I had music playing while I worked.
Frank: That's not music someone your age would typically listen to. You have good taste in music.
He said this multiple times. But that was okay, I didn't mind. It was certainly better than hearing how awful the music I was playing was, and to turn it down so he could concentrate.
But he wasn't there the final week. He wasn't sitting there smiling on the phone with his wife for half an hour, typing frantic emails to companies in England that closed by the time it was noon in his time zone, or telling me how he had placed in last weekend's races.
I intend to resume correspondence with him. It just made that final Friday seem awfully empty.
Tim: I just wanted to thank you for staying with it here for as long as you have.
Mark: Yes, the last person who had your job… he was only here three days, and I think he spent most of those asleep.
Tim: You've accomplished a good amount, there, though, and we wish you all the best at McGill. Now, you're studying chemical engineering, right?
Moose: Ah, just chemistry, for now. Could become chemical engineering, though, we'll see how it evolves.
I doubt I shall ever become an engineer. I simply don't fit their world.
Tim: Ah, and what do you plan to do with that?
Moose: Well, I intend to obtain a doctorate and go into research.
Tim: Well, then! Best of luck, you'll need it.
I watched them clean the back room which held the contents of my assignments. I didn't like seeing it like that, with the empty countertops. There was just something more welcome about seeing the reams of parchment scattered every direction possible. But it was a business - they're paid for efficiency, not atmosphere. And with a final look across the floors which had countless times dirtied the knees of pants unfortunate enough to be worn by me while I hadn't the sense not to kneel on them, I opened the door and walked down the grated metal stairs, past the giant tank of brown water, past the curtains behind which the welding took place, past the overhead cranes which could slaughter hundreds on a rampage in the wrong hands, past the rows of brass coils awaiting their destinies, and to the vending machines where I purchased my final muffin.
I may return, but not for quite some time yet.
Here's to Frank the Contractor.
Intentions that fail to come to fruition can be divided into two groups: either it was a lack of effort, motivation, or capacity on the part of the one with the intention, or it was an inhibition imposed by an outside force. For example, this entry runs a high risk of failure by the first case, as I have been stuck around this second paragraph for a very long time. But I think I just figured out how to get out of it, so we shall see how that goes.
Failures by the second case, however, can be exceedingly more frustrating. I suppose that's mostly why I was so keen on attending a college with a good distance away from my home: I prefer to be in control of my own future. Call it mental masochism, but I much prefer to be able to blame myself when things go wrong. I ought to have been aware, though, that while living on my own could reduce the number of things that go wrong for me because of other people, such cases cannot be eliminated - contrary to what I might like, I do not control the world.
Moose: Are you here to interview?
Sarah: Yes, seems I've been sitting here all day.
Moose: Looked like they started to point to you to go in next, but then chose the other two.
Kind of what my life is like.
Sarah: So where are you from?
Moose: Gardner.
Sarah: No, I mean, originally.
Moose: Buffalo, New York.
Sarah: Ah, Ani DiFranco's from there.
My father says you can classify personality types in people from outside Buffalo by which recording artist they associate with Buffalo. It's a city that's had its fair share of successful groups, to be sure: one thing to be said for Buffalo, is that while most of the city slowly withers with the loss of employment opportunities, it is a city where the music still lives.
I was present in that particular basement hallway at the request of one whose name I drew a blank on when she appeared to greet me on her way to something else, who knows what, there were a thousand things happening that evening. I was not, however, to speak of what exactly it was I was doing. One of those secretive things, which might have been part of what drew me to it.
Srijan: Where are you off to?
Moose: I'm volunteering for a secret society.
Yes, that would have sounded cool. But that was not to be - nonetheless, it was hardly the only thing I volunteered to be a part of. Which was the other reason I was there - for the most part, all too few things had been happening in my life, and my presence at the location where things were happening was to amend this.
I spent an hour navigating a sea of bodies flooding the narrow walkways between the tables where no one was quite sure where anything was except right was in front of them. An indecipherable map assigned numbers to the tables, but these numbers were almost all hidden, and certainly not on the map - the map legend only listed the numbers and what was happening at each. The map itself was a useless jumble of coloured pixels that corresponded to nothing. Hence most of this preliminary hour was spent attempting to locate one table in particular which represented a theatrical society, hidden among societies represented by arbitrary Greek letters and the culinary enthusiasts.
Moose: I've been looking for you. You're hidden.
Gilbert: Well, we didn't pick the table.
Sullivan: Here to audition?
Moose: Absolutely!
The week since has been a long series of auditions and phone calls telling me what groups I have not made it into. It's the harsh reminder that, universally speaking, we really are not so special.
Tom: No matter what you do, there will always be someone out there that's better at it than you.
The constant reminder. It's because I'm not freakish enough to be the absolute best in the world at anything. And yet I still manage to come off impressing people sometimes. Like how I won thirty-seven consecutive games of FreeCell, once. My win percentage, however, appears to have stagnated at ninety-three percent. That's just what I'm capable of, and nothing more.
My name is Moose. I am six feet and one inch tall. I scored a twenty-two hundred on my SATs. I win ninety-three percent of my FreeCell games.
It's like that. Except on paper, no one really cares all that much. We're much more interesting as people than as statistical measurements of intellect, and probability charts predicting reactions to situations. Because that's all we are, when you reduce it far enough.
Teresa: We're all just filters. What we perceive of the world goes in, and likewise we respond - not to the universe precisely, but to our perception of it.
I've been perceiving that the population of Montreal tends to smoke a great deal more than the population of Buffalo. Either that or I didn't get out much. But I would walk places in Buffalo and not often have to hold my breath for fifteen seconds or longer as I passed a smoker approaching me from the opposite direction. Here it seems commonplace, almost but not quite so much as it was when I visited Spain. And I think it is the smoke which has been causing me to be somewhat stuffed in the nasal passages for most of my time since arriving here - I am not sick, you should all know that I have not ever and will not ever be sick. I do have allergies, though. It's just that they're usually gone by this time of year.
Life seems more peaceful since I got here. I'm not sure that it should, but it does. More tranquil, more distant. There are a number of things that make me feel very much a part of my surroundings, and I have not encountered them much here. I've been listening to music a lot more often than I did before. I've been writing and playing music quite a bit more, too. Which some people have found unusual for a student of science, but what do they expect, that I will spend my free time mixing chemicals and speeding down roads so that the police can pull me over and I can use the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle joke? No sirrah.
I have been co-forming a musical group with the intention of getting it to go outside the confines of the residences to play shows at places. The exact genre is still being worked out, but it promises to be conducive to the material I had for the Aristooks last year.
Moose: What did happen to the Aristooks?
Brian: I don't know, man, your guess is as good as mine.
Moose: Seemed it just sort of dissolved as soon as we all picked our colleges and it turned out we weren't all going to be in the same country next year. Of course, that one's mostly my fault…
Brian: Well, it wasn't my decision. We had something good going there, and I would have liked to play some shows before we parted ways.
It was like the Philadelphia Brotherhood. Didn't matter how many decided not to be a part of it any longer, if one fourth departed, it just wasn't the same with the other three.
There was a time when my ideal future involved every one of my close friends staying within the Buffalo region for the remainders of our lives. There was just something very appealing about that familiarity, the endurance of friendship, and the security of not having to make other friendships to make up for ones lost. And then something happened, and that wasn't at all what I wanted.
But what happened, exactly? Something drastic, for certain, because while, I estimate, eighty-five percent of the top ten percent of my graduating class stayed in the city of Buffalo, I have left the country. I was one of three of that group that I am aware of leaving the state. What am I doing here?
Kathleen: Trust me, you need to leave the nest.
Moose: I'm not all that attached to the nest to begin with. I'd just like to see that moving six and a half hours away from the nest is my best option.
My father would have liked to pin all the blame on her. He brought her name up in conversation enough times to choke a horse. Or annoy me, which is quite difficult if you're not aware. No, I have something to prove. I'm not telling what it is, though, because then if it turns out not to be true, you'll be none the wiser.
Damn, I hope I'm right about this.
-----
It was the last day.
An office that was hardly the most welcoming environment, but had some degree of familiarity to it. I put too much value on familiarity, I think.
Moose: Is Frank here?
Marc: No, I don't think Frank's going to be back until next week.
I was disappointed - I would not be present the following week, and I had not bade him a proper farewell as I had not anticipated his week-long absence. My one-time office-mate and I had some interesting discussions to break the monotony of our tasks. He was a competitive cyclist, and coached a cycling team as well as a number of private students. We shared a number of political and philosophical beliefs, as well as musical interests.
Frank: I don't know, I think I might retire from this in a few years. Move on to something else I've wanted to do for a while - there are so many interests I've wanted to pursue, this is just one of them, and I took this one more for the salary than anything.
At his age I could end up in the exact same position. Except instead of being an engineer retiring to pursue personal training, I would be a chemist retiring to pursue, say, spelunking.
During my stay at the company, I had purchased Charlotte, my mp3 player - the Creative MicroPhoto, a device much more sturdy and efficient than the iPod at a comparable or better price. No one has paid me anything to say this, I speak only as one who has owned both products and sees that one is better.
So I brought Charlotte in to my place of employment, along with a pair of portable speakers; hardly the finest speakers you'll find, but they were a gift. And from then forth I had music playing while I worked.
Frank: That's not music someone your age would typically listen to. You have good taste in music.
He said this multiple times. But that was okay, I didn't mind. It was certainly better than hearing how awful the music I was playing was, and to turn it down so he could concentrate.
But he wasn't there the final week. He wasn't sitting there smiling on the phone with his wife for half an hour, typing frantic emails to companies in England that closed by the time it was noon in his time zone, or telling me how he had placed in last weekend's races.
I intend to resume correspondence with him. It just made that final Friday seem awfully empty.
Tim: I just wanted to thank you for staying with it here for as long as you have.
Mark: Yes, the last person who had your job… he was only here three days, and I think he spent most of those asleep.
Tim: You've accomplished a good amount, there, though, and we wish you all the best at McGill. Now, you're studying chemical engineering, right?
Moose: Ah, just chemistry, for now. Could become chemical engineering, though, we'll see how it evolves.
I doubt I shall ever become an engineer. I simply don't fit their world.
Tim: Ah, and what do you plan to do with that?
Moose: Well, I intend to obtain a doctorate and go into research.
Tim: Well, then! Best of luck, you'll need it.
I watched them clean the back room which held the contents of my assignments. I didn't like seeing it like that, with the empty countertops. There was just something more welcome about seeing the reams of parchment scattered every direction possible. But it was a business - they're paid for efficiency, not atmosphere. And with a final look across the floors which had countless times dirtied the knees of pants unfortunate enough to be worn by me while I hadn't the sense not to kneel on them, I opened the door and walked down the grated metal stairs, past the giant tank of brown water, past the curtains behind which the welding took place, past the overhead cranes which could slaughter hundreds on a rampage in the wrong hands, past the rows of brass coils awaiting their destinies, and to the vending machines where I purchased my final muffin.
I may return, but not for quite some time yet.
Here's to Frank the Contractor.