First day in the office
I understand the procession, bus fire, and riot gear now. It's the lead story in the morning's newspaper. The procession (if I'm reading this right) was a protest against the hanging of Saddam Hussein. This fueled tensions that had been brewing since Friday, and a riot broke out. Buses and shops were set on fire. The police fired upon the crowd and killed a boy and injured others.
All my planned upbeat journal entries are dissipating like scattered smoke. I don't think I should tell Jon until I am home.
***
A note in The Prism and the Pendulum reminds me of a moment in my 7th-grade science class (the physics year) of which I am rather proud. To discover the effects of acceleration due to gravity, we were given a ramp with four positions marked on it, a car, and a stopwatch. The experiment was to let the car roll down the ramp and catch its elapsed time at each mark, to see that it speeds up. Most teams tried to read off the times as the car rolled. "Uh... 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4."
I could tell right away that that wouldn't work. So I prompted our team to run four trials, timing from start to first mark, from start to second, and so on. Worked like a charm. I'm proud that I showed such a scientific mind at a young age.
***
At $Office! The cube walls are half-height (I can see over it while seated) and only define two sides of a square (so this table is shared by another employee), yet the volume level is so much more pleasant. (Granted, it is early yet, at 11am.) People talk at very polite volumes, they aren't on speaker phones, and no one has yet slammed his mouse repeatedly on the desk in frustration. And after a weekend of smelling cigarette smoke, the air in the office is refreshingly sweet.
I'm supposed to meet with three teammates. One is home sick. One is on vacation this week. One is not in the office yet. Humph. Well, I guess there is plenty I can get done (if I could tear myself away from this journal).
All my planned upbeat journal entries are dissipating like scattered smoke. I don't think I should tell Jon until I am home.
***
A note in The Prism and the Pendulum reminds me of a moment in my 7th-grade science class (the physics year) of which I am rather proud. To discover the effects of acceleration due to gravity, we were given a ramp with four positions marked on it, a car, and a stopwatch. The experiment was to let the car roll down the ramp and catch its elapsed time at each mark, to see that it speeds up. Most teams tried to read off the times as the car rolled. "Uh... 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds, 4."
I could tell right away that that wouldn't work. So I prompted our team to run four trials, timing from start to first mark, from start to second, and so on. Worked like a charm. I'm proud that I showed such a scientific mind at a young age.
***
At $Office! The cube walls are half-height (I can see over it while seated) and only define two sides of a square (so this table is shared by another employee), yet the volume level is so much more pleasant. (Granted, it is early yet, at 11am.) People talk at very polite volumes, they aren't on speaker phones, and no one has yet slammed his mouse repeatedly on the desk in frustration. And after a weekend of smelling cigarette smoke, the air in the office is refreshingly sweet.
I'm supposed to meet with three teammates. One is home sick. One is on vacation this week. One is not in the office yet. Humph. Well, I guess there is plenty I can get done (if I could tear myself away from this journal).