you’ve got questions, i’ve got answers!
from hannahchan:
1. I know I should know this, but I feel like I’ve only ever gotten pieces of it explained to me: What’s the deal with you and school? You’re in grad school? Or undergrad? Studying what? With the goal of what? What’s the plan, man?
*takes a deep breath*
i started at umbc back in 2000 for my undergraduate degree (information systems — folks knew that i liked computers and apparently this was going to be the next big thing for computer-types), and i lived on campus and took classes until the spring of 2001.
my parents then told me that i’d have to pay for my own schooling since they weren’t able to pay for it themselves, so i took off of school for a year so i could work and make some tuition money… it took me a while to find a job and eventually i enrolled with manpower, today’s staffing and adecco for temporary positions, and later got a position with tower records as a cashier. after working at tower for 3 or 4 months and after doing some typical office data-entry stuff with today’s staffing on the side (manpower never ever found me any jobs to do), i got a call from adecco: “do you know where the verizon wireless store is in the annapolis harbor center?” (yeah, it’s right next door to where i work now, actually) “well, they’re looking for someone to stand in the doorway all day, direct people around the store and answer questions — it’s $10.98 per hour and it’s temp-to-hire, so if they like you then they’ll hire you.” (sweet!)
when i interviewed with the manager of the verizon wireless store, he asked me why i’m not taking any classes, and i told him how i took off of school to make tuition money. he shook his head and told me “if you come work for us, we pay your tuition.” so i started working in the store as a store greeter at the end of august 2001. one guy who worked for verizon wireless (drew, one of my pals up at headquarters with me now) stopped in the store while i was greeting and i heard that he went to umbc for information systems, so i asked him if it was true that they really did pay his tuition, and he told me yes — if you get a “c” or better, and if it’s in a field that the company can use (which excludes stuff like history majors, geologists, stuff like that), then they pay your tuition excluding fees up to something like $5000 / year ($2500 semiannually).
now after a while i asked adecco about how long it is before they decide whether or not they want to hire you, and they told me after 3 months. well, after 2 1/2 months of working as a greeter, the company had a hiring freeze, so that put the breaks on me getting hired. eventually the freeze was lifted and i started applying for positions like sales rep or customer service rep again. unfortunately there was someone who was always better qualified or preferred for the position, so i wasn’t hired for any of these spots. and later on, around april of 2003 or so, i got a call from adecco — “we’re really sorry, and they really want to keep you, but we found out that you’ve been there for about a year and a half now, and you should have been there AT MOST for 6 months.” (i was actually the first greeter in the store – if not ALL the stores – and i trained all the greeters that came in during my time there. i even was running cash registers and doing all sorts of stuff that i wasn’t originally supposed to do, but at least that ended up getting me a raise to $11.98 / hour… not bad for “stand around in the doorway and answer questions!”) so i went back to a previous job i had, selling computers in the campus bookstore at umbc.
i still kept in touch with a bunch of my old coworkers from verizon wireless, and a few of them told me how there was a customer service position that just opened and that i should really think of applying, so i did and was hired in september 2003, and have been with the company ever since. 90% of the reason why i’m there is because they’re paying my tuition, and if i were to have to find a different job before i get my degree, i’m not going to take anything that won’t pay my tuition for me.
anyway, so was back in school as of the fall of 2003, and i think that semester was full-time since i was living on campus. i went down to taking classes part-time for a semester or two and went back to living at home, but then one semester i thought i’d be adventurous and try to do a full courseload and work full-time at the same time, but that was just hellish — i’d work 8-hour days every day but monday and wednesday or tuesday and thursday, and those two days would be classes almost non-stop from 8 am to 9 pm. never again!
after taking classes at umbc in the spring of 2006 i figured i’d try transferring to university of maryland, university college (umuc) — mainly because:
so, i transferred! they’ve got some requirement that you can’t request to have your transcript reviewed to see what classes transfer from your previous institution until you’ve taken at least 6 credits, and that process takes a month or three as well. i requested a review, had to request another review when the first one wasn’t received or something, and i actually just got the results back today!
so, according to the transcript review, i’ve got 96 credits under my belt right now with a 2.357 gpa, and 24 credits left to go. i still need:
at one point i thought about getting a minor in journalism (hey, been working on my degree for this long, why not make it 2 while i’m at it?) when i found the photojournalism class and it supposedly needed a journalism class as a prerequisite, but since my photojournalism instructor didn’t care and since the writing for the mass media class kicked my ass all over town (that instructor was tough as nails too), i changed my mind on the minor.
(i have to say that the most awesome elective i took was when i was in the honors society at umbc (yeah, that didn’t last too long) and took “from spies to satellites” — taught by an absent-minded professor who gave us candy every day for coming to class, he actually even got condoleeza rice to come in and give a presentation to the class back before anybody knew who she really was. that professor was so much fun i signed up for his physics lecture just to take a class of his again.)
*exhales*
and people wonder why i get pissed whenever some family member nags me about continuing to work towards my degree. IT’S ONLY BEEN WHAT I’VE BEEN TRYING TO DO FOR THE PAST 7+ YEARS. i hear the same things every thanksgiving, christmas, easter, etc. and seriously want to punch some sucka in the mouth when i hear a family member ask me “so, when are you graduating?” *fume fume*
but, yeah, hopefully all these classes will be over soon. once i graduate there better be such a crazy party to celebrate that i’ll have to take off of work for a few weeks afterwards just to recover. and i will NOT be the one planning it, oh no. maybe i’ll go on a cruise once it’s done. goddamn.
2. If you were forced to learn to fight with only weapon (the way characters in video games often seem to be), which weapon would you choose to learn and why? (Yes, I realize that I asked Cynical the same question. If you’re wondering if I’m planning a cage match, I think it’s pretty obvious that I am.)
bazooka! there’s just something neat about being able to shoot a rocket from your shoulder at someone/something.
3. When you first met me, did you think I was nice or mean?
hm, i actually can’t even remember if i thought you were nice or mean. i was probably trying to wrap my head around everybody’s tom jones outfits.
4. Do you think male roller derby will ever attain the same level of organization and popularity that female derby has? Explain.
somehow i don’t think it will. i think that there won’t be as much interest in guy’s derby from guys as there is by girls for girl derby, probably because there’s other sports that already tend to interest guys, such as football and whatnot.
5. I haven’t lived within 1000 miles of my family since I was 17. You seem pretty comfortable living in close proximity of yours. How do you maintain your own sense of space and independence when the whole Oboe Clan is so nearby? Any other advice you can give a person who’s about to find herself within a short drive of her parents for the first time in almost 20 years?
my mom’s side of the family is about 90% in the dc area, with the rest being either a short drive away in delaware or they’ve moved down to florida or boston. my dad’s side of the family is about 80% dc area, with folks out on the west coast or scattered from the carolinas up to new jersey. we’ve usually done family events with my mom’s side of the family, i guess because everyone’s a lot younger (i’m the oldest of my cousins on that side). i wish i could see folks on my dad’s side (and the older folks on my mom’s side) a bit more, but i only mostly see my relatives during family gatherings at holidays when you’d expect to see family anyway. even then it’s not unusual for some of the other cousins and folks around my age to be doing something elsewhere when the extended family gets together. i’ve always thought that to be a little bit weird, spending holidays and gatherings with your girlfriend/boyfriend and their family instead of you both visiting with your respective families.
6. Do you consider yourself a shy person? I just wondered, because you seemed really quiet when I first met you, but then I started hearing about all your crazy piano-night shenanigans and began rethinking that image. So I’d be curious to know what your own take on that is.
i guess i go both ways on this one — with some people in some circumstances, i can start chatting right away… i actually enjoyed doing overtime last holiday season at our kiosk in towson town center, not only because i got to hang out with my friend karrie who was working at that kiosk at the time, but just because i could chat with the customers face-to-face.
i was pretty shy before about chatting up the ladies, mostly because i’d have to find something in common to talk about and i didn’t really enjoy trying to make small-talk, and i’d almost have to pre-script conversations in my head before making certain phone calls. a few years ago i actually got some self-help audiobooks that gave you tips on how to talk to anybody. (i always felt weird to see those in the audiobook section of my ipod, like “why in the world would i have ‘how to talk to anybody’ in my audio library?”).
i didn’t try chatting up one girl a year ago that festive and spelchec and i saw in college park who had a mini cooper, even though michelle kept urging me on. that’s about when i figured that i wasn’t doing myself any favors by holding back, and i’ve gotten better at that since then.
the nice thing about crazy piano-night and other on-stage shenanigans is that i’m not really talking with someone directly right then and there, and if i decide to talk to someone there later, we’ve already got something in common to talk about (usually it being how ridiculous i just was up on stage). i guess really i’m more of a listener, and i prefer to type things up rather than talk on the phone… i don’t like not being able to see the other person talk, unless it’s someone that i already know really well. probably another reason why i hate having to answer the phones at work when i’m on the internet response team sending out email responses!
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from cynicalscribe:
1. Watching derby through the lens vs. playing derby yourself: what do you get out of experiencing derby from these two sides? Is participating one way more fulfilling than the other?
they’re both fulfilling in their own way… i can’t say for sure until september 8, but i’d say that it almost seems harder trying to photograph derby — you’re trying to compose a good shot, keep everything pertinent in focus and you’re trying to predict when and where the action is going to unfold even though you can only see about half of the track at a time (and even less when you’re looking through the camera itself). throw in the lighting and keeping from getting run over, derby photography is tough! playing derby, that’s “only” a matter of skating in a circle, getting past people, and beating them up… almost anybody can do that!
2. You graduated from an all-male Catholic high school. How did this educational experience affect you–academically, socially, in terms of gender relations, etc.?
i picked dematha because of the band program — if i didn’t go to dematha, i probably would have ended up at the local parish’s co-ed high school (but i had no desire to go there… i don’t know really why, but i didn’t really like a lot of the folks i went with to middle school, and had no real desire to hang out with them for another 4 years). i’m so glad i went to dematha, though. sure, it sucked not having any girls around (when any girl would step onto the campus she’d be swarmed with guys who wanted to talk to her), but it made for some pretty funny stories about school trips and how it was like seeing an endangered animal in the wild. academically, the teachers were excellent and the classes were great; i applied to college with an SAT score of 1210 or so. socially, so many of my friends now are guys i went to school with (which is both a good and a bad thing; as one of my friends put it, “get two or more dematha guys together and you won’t hear anything but stories about how great dematha was for the rest of the night!”, hahaha).
plus, from going to dematha, i managed to have a water-fight with a teacher in her wet t-shirt, and she later ended up as a model. that’s gotta be worth something!
3. Which parent do you resemble more, physically and/or personality-wise?
i’d have to say my dad for both. peep these memoirs! i want to add the appropriate photos into it and save it as a pdf book.
4. What’s your best “This one time at band camp…” story?
oh jeez. well, i was probably in 5th or 6th grade and we were away at band camp at st. mary’s college in southern maryland. we were playing the theme to “rocky and bullwinkle”, and this guy in my class — brett douglas — was in the percussion section and all he had to do was turn the crank on the ratchet for a “CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK” sound effect when mr. gianotti pointed at him for his cue. brett figured that he’d be the class-clown and he never would play the ratchet on cue…
music: *dun dun dun-dun dun, dun dun dun dun dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun dun dundundun, dun-dun-dun dunnn dun!*
mr. gianotti: *points at brett*
brett: …………………… *CLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACKCLACK*
mr. gianotti: “NO BRETT, PLAY THE RATCHET WHEN I POINT AT YOU!”
seriously, this was taking forever, and eventually i had to use the bathroom. so i raised my hand – “uh, can i go to the bathroom?” and got a “we’ll break in 10 minutes!”. about 2 minutes later i raised my hand and said “uh, can i go? i REALLY GOTTA GO.” and so we broke our band session right then and there. on the last day of camp we got different joke-awards — mine was the “where’s the bathroom award”. 😛
i don’t know if that’s the “best” story i have, but it’s no more interesting to read than me finding a $5 bill in the swimming pool, my friends and i drinking so much mountain dew because we would use the soda machine as a change machine that happened to give out sodas when we needed change to call home on the payphone down the hall (since we didn’t know at all about calling collect until later), justin sayres mooning the dorm hall filled with kids causing us all to go running around in circles yelling “AHHH IT’S A FULL MOON” and locking ourselves in our rooms away from his ass (except for me who had to room with him and his ass :P), or how he bought a penthouse magazine from some kid and he had to keep hiding it under his mattress when his dad (a chaperone) would stop on by, or me listening to the dr. demento show while under my covers one night, or trying to eat crabs for the first time by ourselves and not knowing to not eat the gills and learning that bit the hard way.
there’s a few “this one time on band trip” stories too from about that time, but they mostly involve the hotel forgetting to turn off access to the porno stations and how everybody was getting these porno stations for free and would stand on their balconies and shout out different tv stations for other people to tune in to. it’s weird seeing a porno-movie pimp for the first time as a kid, your first thought is “boy, doesn’t he get hot under that fur coat?”, haha…
5. Your complete and utter ridiculousness: is it genetic? Did Nature or Nurture spawn your distinctive sense of humor?
hm, the only other people i can think of in my family who say jokes as ridiculous as me are uncles related to me by marriage. but one of them has a story about how he was hiking with my dad in the winter, and they stopped for a break to look at this frozen river. my dad said something about how it’d be nice to have a beer right there and his brother-in-law agreed, and next thing he knew my dad was pulling out two cans of foster’s for them to drink, haha. then again, my dad’s brother went back to college to work on his masters or something, and he’s about 60 years old and figured he’d go for the full college-experience and tried out for crew and tried to rush a fraternity, so maybe it is partly genetic too.
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anybody want any questions, just ask!