First Post

Hello and welcome. In this blog, prepare yourself for an adventure, the likes of which has never been attempted before: going inside Andy's head. If you are too afraid of the prospect that goes on within my skull, then I would advise you to leave now while you still can. Good. Now that we have weeded out the weaklings, we can now proceed to some more serious business.

First off, my day at work today was ________(adjective I have yet to determine). I was supposed to work on deli line and then we were short so they switched me to the typical breakfast line, which was understandably busier because there are not a whole lot of people that want sandwiches and wraps at 10am. Anyhow, I got over to the line and busted my butt to get through the line that snaked through the cafeteria serving area. Also per usual, the cooks could not keep up with the demand they were facing, so I was constantly short of food, so I switched over to the line with more food since my own line was deprived of food. Mike and I were throwing the food (both figuratively and sometimes literally) at the hungry mob of college students.

After the cafeteria was shut down for brunch was when things started to get even more interesting. I started to talking to Mike, and we shared a lot of information for never talking to each other before. Potential friend I think. Anyhow, he is from Andover and went to AR for a year and a half, worked at Bunker Beach for several years, and just transferred to Luther as well. Needless to say, it was awesome to share stories with him and find someone that I had so much in common with. We started cleaning the line and then when it was all done, I went out into the actual dining room and started assisted in cleaning tables and such. This is when my great revelation and the push that I needed to create this blog came from. I noticed two phenomena while I was cleaning tables.

First of all, and perhaps not surprisingly, (undergrad) college kids are generally lazy yet destructive. The tables were absolutely disgusting, it was as if a renegade group of two year old who cannot feed themselves had come to the cafeteria. Food was all over the floor, syrup was on the tables, and dishes were left at the tables. First of all, you pass the dish return on your way out of the cafeteria (which, by the way, I will henceforth refer to as the "caf") so it is not like it is some great inconvenience to put your dishes on the turnstyle. Secondly, really?! What were you doing while you were eating? Did you lose all hand-eye coordination or forget where your mouth is? Grr... Anyhow, I was doing my duty nonetheless. This is where my college kids are lazy observation comes in. I had just busted my ass off (in my opinion at least) and I am sure everyone else did as well, yet there were kids slacking, sitting down and texting, and just generally being dinks. This is not a new phenomenon either. I understand wanting to take a little break from standing for a couple hours, but you can do something productive while you do this. Seriously. Not that difficult. I just thought about how disappointing our generation is insofar that we do not know what hard work looks like.

As I was cleaning tables, I also thought about how mindless this activity was and about how often people complain about mindless activities being a waste of time. However, consider the following argument that I will hopefully make clear: mindless activities may be demeaning and whatever other negative adjectives you wish to attach to such times, but at the same time you are offered free time for your brain to think about anything. Absolutely anything you want, which is, in my opinion, awesome and ultimately important to being human. For example, since my brain was not needed to concentrate on much else other than a repetitive motion of cleaning, I was able to think about all of the proceeding plus other random thoughts. I have noticed this occurring while I shovel snow (which apparently only falls in Minnesnowta) and when driving somewhere. Both are quite mindless (although you ought to have your mind somewhat on the road when driving), which leaves you to ponder strange or interesting natural or social phenomena. And to conclude this paragraph and post in general (since I am running out of things to write) in light of my recent reading of Plato's "The Apology," consider the quotation Plato attributes to Socrates: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

That is all for now, I am sure I will have more tomorrow or the next day because I have a busy schedule this week, including an oral exam in Spanish, an interview for a position in the history department, a lecture from a man who will be talking about his account of the Egyptian Revolution earlier this year, a dialogue given by multiple professors at Luther concerning creationism vs. evolution, which should be interesting and insightful, and then finally I get to talk with my adviser concerning registration for the upcoming fall. Pretty exciting week, one of only 6 or so left this academic year. :))