On the other hand, I’m getting pretty used to these utilities shortages. In fact, when power came back Saturday night, I wasn’t even excited…although that was because I knew that there would still be no Internet. In my opinion, communicating is the only thing that you genuinely need electricity for. Think about it: all other power cut problems can be solved with bonfires, pens, and candles. With those three things you can cook your food, write your papers, and see your papers. Some would say the last one is a luxury. What more could an ALA student want? (And what more are we encouraged to do?)
There’s a famous quotation by John Donne that says, “no man is an island”. Well, it’s wrong. If you live in a 200 student school and there’s no Internet or cell phone access, you are an island. You’re a small lump of rotting wood that nobody even cares about, floating around in the Atlantic Ocean with a single sea cucumber attached to you for company. I love over-extending metaphors.
After a few days without links to the outside world, I was getting desperate; I was about ready to build a gigantic lighthouse, right in the middle of the quad, to transmit morse code messages to Jo’burg.
..- .-. --. . -. - .-.-.- … . -. -.. …. . .-.. .--. .-- . -. . . -.. -- --- .-. . -.- . - -.-. … ..- .--.*
(U-r-g-e-n-t. S-e-n-d h-e-l-p w-e n-e-e-d m-o-r-e k-e-t-c-h-u-p.)
We might ostensibly be about leadership, but we’ve got our priorities straight.
Anyway, it’s obviously not that bad, because we have people here to talk to. But face-to-face interactions have a problem as well: some of us have no feel whatsoever for appropriate conversation volume. This is most obvious in group settings, notably these two:
Listening to one person speak.
Picture this: you’re sitting with 200 other people, listening to a renowned guest speaker, perhaps the CEO of a major bank, or the founder of your school. The audience is quiet and attentive. People are wary of even shifting too loudly in their seats. Then some fool next to you turns his head and begins a normal, well-projected conversation, without a hint of compunction or remorse. He doesn’t even lean towards you! Does he have no sense of shame? Can he not hear himself? Murmuring is a vital life skill, and some would do well to learn it.
However, I’m tentative about over-promoting whispering, lest the following situation become more common:
Room full of people, with many separate conversations.
Last Wednesday, all of the first years and gap years were in the back of the factory. We were in groups, and conducting an exercise centered around facilitation and NASA. Yes, ALA is a wonderful place. Anyway, things were going okay until a couple people decided to “speak up”. And by speak up, I mean make a light swishing sound with their lips. No matter how hard we tried to get them to be louder, they wouldn’t. We just couldn’t hear them over the eleven other conversations in the room. I’ve drawn a graph to better describe the problem:
(click to enlarge)
“Sotto voce” should be considered a real, medical affliction.
Finally, a fantastic piece of news! It’s almost more exciting than the return of Internet. We got our uniforms last week! Nope, I’m not happy because I’m obsessed with looking presentable. I’m happy because I only brought seven days worth of clothing to ALA, and now I can do laundry a little less often. Hallelujah!
Not sure I can vouch for their measurement process though…
(I drew this with inches instead of cm after the first panel. Ignore that. click to enlarge)
Some of the girls really are swimming in their tunics.
*This really is morse code
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