I Am A Robot (and I like it)

I had my first shift at Rite Aid today. It was an 8 hour day. I had to get there at 8am, which is 2 hours earlier than the earliest I had woken up on project before this morning.

I began by doing paperwork and then CBTs, which are Computer Based Trainings. I did about an hour and a half of CBTs, which is apparently small potatoes compared to some later CBTs but that was enough to get me well bored.

Then I got to man the cash register. I picked it up pretty quick, but I guess I'm going to relearn all of the things I learned today in CBTs later. Yippee.

It was a pretty straightforward procedure. "Hello, do you have a Rite Aid card?"

If no: "Would you like to sign up for one? ...... No? That's fine. Cash or card?"

If yes: Scan the card. Scan items. Bag them. Press the 'Debit/Credit card' button on the register or the 'Cash' button depending on the medium tendered. Try to press the button before they swipe their card. If you're not fast enough, press the button and then say, "Go ahead and try that again."

If fewer customers show up and things slow down, go and straighten the shelves near the register. Not like the actual shelf. The items on it.

This was actually a huge highlight. There was a big rush all morning because people show up on Saturdays -- and that made time go quick, which was nice -- but straightening is one of my things. I do it sometimes in stores that I don't work at. So I would scurry over and stand up the toppled sunscreens until the shift manager would bark, "Nolan to the register!" and I would look up and see that there were like 40 people in line that I hadn't noticed.

And then I would hurry them through and scurry back to my array of sunscreens.

So parts of work were definitely kind of a blast and my coworkers were really friendly and time went by really fast until the last 3 hours which were really, really, really slow. So overall, positive experience.

But when I stopped for my employee-discounted less-than-five-dollar lunch, I took a moment to reflect on my day and realized something a little alarming.

I had turned into a robot.

I couldn't remember what I was like behind the register. I had no perception of my own appearance. I couldn't remember any thoughts I had. All I remembered was saying over and over and over: "Do you have a Rite Aid card?"

It was weird. I was a robot. I was a clerk. I wasn't a human with emotions and feelings. I was part of Rite Aid. I smiled and doled out cigarettes like a cancer-spreading fiend, and tried not to act embarrassed when the lady on the phone said, "Oh my gosh, I am being so rude to this boy right here. Hold on a moment."

I tried to make jokes, but they were weird coming from an automaton and the recipients patiently smiled as if to say, "That's nice, metal man. Maybe you should go straighten those sunscreens over there." So I stopped making jokes and just tried to smile.

Anyway, the day wasn't that bad. My feet hurt from standing so long, but it was a really friendly atmosphere and not a bad time and I'm not dreading going in at 8am on Monday that bad yet.

Also I get a 20% employee discount so I know where my paycheck's going. I bought 4 of the big Gatorades today and some pretzels. Delicious!

Anyway, so work's going to be alright.

Also, if you're the praying type you could shoot some up this next week because it's Killing the Giants week and we're going to be doing evangelism as hard in the paint as possible. We set some number goals which I'm still ambivalent about, but the big thing is that we're trying to push ourselves to get past the limits of our strength and then to trust that God's going to make stuff happen slash give us energy.

It's gonna be tiring but crazy sweet.

A Quickie

I was going to write a long update today about how I found a job and how I'm making some close friends and how I've already started to learn how ignorant and stubborn I've been about so many spiritual things and how excited I am to learn truth.

But first I worked out, then there was basketball, then clean-up, then frisbee, then a long dinner, then Kmart, then games in the basement. Days are a blur. Sometimes I stop and wonder where all the time went.

And now for the first time I'll actually have an excuse for never having time to blog or write emails that I need to be writing, because tomorrow I start working. My job's at Rite Aid -- a small pharmacy 3 blocks from the house we're staying in. The manager is very friendly. We already talked about the tragedy of Vietnam and how unions only exist to help slackers get jobs.

So basically it turns out I don't have much to complain about. I actually have a lot to be thankful for.

In fact, if I had my tablet pen, life would be perfect.

Thanks for listening to my whining. This is going to be a really cool summer.

First Impressions

I haven't blogged in a little while now. There are two reasons.

1) There's not very much time in Ocean City. There are always things to do and when there aren't things to do I feel compelled to find people to hang out with, at the risk of being alone for the rest of my life the summer.

2) I lost the pen that I use for illustrating so if I wanted to do a picture post I would have to use my finger and we've seen how that goes. And I really wanted to do a picture post so there wouldn't be two text blob posts in a row. But for the time being it's going to be text blob posts, and it took me a while to come to terms with this and just write something.

This is my fourth day in Ocean City. Absolutely unbelievable. These days have raced by like a herd of furious stallions.

I'm going to try to recall all my impressions because there have been a ton of emotions every day and sometimes when things are okay it's hard to remember what it was like when it wasn't so great.

Day 1 was great. There was the expected level of awkwardness and the expected number of handshakes and "Hi, yeah, I'm not gonna remember your name but what is it" conversations. Everyone was very friendly and I had the spiel down to a science. "I'm Nolan. I'm from Northwestern. I'm a bio major. I'll be a junior next year. What's your name, school, major, year and, if we're going to be walking next to each other for a little while, life plan?"

We had our timing down well because in the evening of the day we got in, there were Action groups, which is like Bible studies with the guys (or girls if you're a chick) from your room. So it was a chance to hang out with the guys that are going to be our bros for the summer, which is something that most quarter students won't get to do until next week.

The next day was the awkward one. We weren't quite new anymore so we weren't such a hot item and then it started to feel like the semester students wanted to hang out with the semester students who they already knew and had done bro-y things like wrestling with. I always felt like I was inserting myself into conversations to the chagrin of the conversationists.

And it was that place where it was like we all knew that we wanted to be pals and we knew we'd get there eventually but we still just didn't know each other that well and there's subtle things that make it harder to hang out -- like you don't value it as much when you laugh at each others' jokes and you don't know who's friendly and who's shy and who's being sarcastic.

Everyone was still friendly, but all of a sudden I wanted to be bro-y, not friendly.

Event-wise it was still sweet though. We ran around looking for jobs all day and then there was group dinner in the evening followed by a large group meeting at a local church that is apparently very fond of Cru as long as we wear nice pants to service. But it wasn't service, it was large group. So we wore shorts.

Anyway, it was a great time and then we went to an amusement park afterward despite lightning and rain because the rides were one ticket each for that night only and the lightning let up but a couple of us Northwestern kids didn't ride any rides because we have feeble constitutions.

Friday, things got better. By and large, the semester kids were phenomenally friendly and tried to make us feel at home by slapping our butts when they walked by or saying our names when they saw us to let us know that they remembered our names. I was starting to feel more bro-y than friendly -- but there was still a hard balance to keep because the people I enjoyed being around most were my Northwestern friends because we have so much history, but if I ever wanted to integrate then I needed to hang out with people that I didn't enjoy as much.

We went to the beach and played Spikeball and this is where it'd be real nice to draw a picture but I'm going to draw one with my words instead so hang on tight!

You have a round net in the middle, like a small trampoline. And there's a little rubber ball. You have two teams of two and you spike the ball back and forth on the net, playing like volleyball (3 hits each team, no double hits). You can't have double bounces on the net, and you can't hit the rim of the net.

You end up running around flailing and yelling and, after you get the hang of strategy, feeling like a boss when you make spikes.

We played Spikeball again today. I feel like it's going to be one of those things we do this summer.

Okay. And then today I did job stuff in the morning and then hung out on the beach all day and then came home and tried to squeeze in writing this blog post before dinner.

Three more things before I wrap this up:

1) Job searching is a huge pain. The semester students got here a week before us and took all the jobs. McDonalds is the only easy option left but I need more hours than they would give in order to pay for project so I'm putting out a ton of applications to other places. Didn't realize it was going to be so hard. Thanks for the heads up, guys from previous years who told me what to expect. But I've got a lot of prospects now so it might turn out okay. Just kidding. God's in charge. It's going to be fine. It's just hard for me to tell myself that sometimes.

2) Making new friends was as awkward and fake as I expected but it's also progressing through the awkward fake stage a lot faster than I thought it would. I'm starting to feel a little bit comfortable. That's a big plus.

3) I'll just go ahead and throw down a quick weekly schedule here for those people who would be trying to piece it together from the tidbits:
Sunday - church, something, something. I forget.
Monday - work, dinner, large group, hangout
Tuesday - work, dinner, date night with Jesus, hangout
Wednesday - work, dinner, Action group, hangout
Thursday - work, dinner, large group, hangout
Friday - work, cleaning up, chill
Saturday - chill, hangout, dinner, outreach
Discipleship squeezed in there somewhere.

This is going to be a tiring summer. I'm annoyed that I lost my pen. I'm annoyed that it's hard to find a job. I'm annoyed that I didn't get to show up with the semester students.

But there's already been several boardwalk outreaches. We're going again tonight. We had a worship night last night and people crowded around to see what was going on. There's a huge amount of people who need the Gospel passing through Ocean City, walking down the boardwalk two blocks away from where we sleep. God put us here.

And this is going to be a great summer.

Why I Hate Making Friends

So Ocean City is almost real. It's been something potential hanging overhead for this whole year, but in four days we're going to be on the road. What the heck? Four days!

Which means I have three days to pack my life up, in the midst of working, trying to squeeze in everything left to do this year, teaching Danny and Jeff (fellow road-trippers) to drive stick, and studying for two finals on Monday. If this is possible, which is sort of unsure right now, we're going to hit the road in the wee hours on Tuesday morning and drive through all day Tuesday. What will happen after that is a little up in the air. We might stay at Jeff's house in Philadelphia Tuesday night or we might drive on into Ocean City. It'll be a road decision, as they say.

When I say the possibility of finishing packing is a little unsure, I sort of mean it. When I look around at this room, packed to the corners, I can't even imagine shuffling necessary things into the right boxes and other stuff into other boxes and making the right calls and condensing it down and not forgetting 200 things.

Packing is one of those things that drives me up the wall.

Here's another good source of stress: Change. And more specifically, change into a less comfortable environment.

We quarter students are all part of the Ocean City 2012 Facebook page and so we can go on and look at the stuff the semester students are up to and wish we didn't have finals. Some things seem kind of neat -- living space rivalries (the mannex or the womINN) or stories about people raising support in unexpected ways.

But some things are decidedly not neat. Having an outreach just a few days after arriving, scrambling around trying to find jobs, and the biggest thing: making new friends.

Don't misread that! Friends aren't the problem. Friends are nice. Sometimes I enjoy the ones I have.

But what sucks, and what makes me feel as nauseous and inadequate as when I was preparing to come to college, is making this whole new set of friends.

Getting to know people is a huge amount of time and effort. My current friends-- we've hung out. We've played games together and learned that we're competitive, and they've seen that I enjoy basketball, and I've seen that they enjoy singing, and they've seen that I'm stubborn and hurtful, and I've seen that they love God a lot even when they don't act like it.

But no one in Ocean City has seen that I like to shut the door to my room and play guitar for a few hours when I'm stressed. And I haven't seen that when they sigh and fidget with their shoes it means they have something to talk about. So we're going to have to learn all this about each other.

But learning takes time and effort and energy and right now I don't care that their favorite color is brown because it reminds them of home, and I don't want to learn why they like Carrie Underwood more than Taylor Swift.

I already have friends!

I don't want to put in this time and energy and cheery smiling and acting like I'm interested in getting to know someone who I could care less about -- and then after we've pushed through the unpleasant fake phase, to let it all just drop because they go to UCLA and I go to Northwestern and let's be real we'll probably never see each other again. It's an abuse of relational energy.

And what it makes it worse is when I look around and see everyone else being super friendly and digging into this trove of new friends. And part of me wants to start friending people on Facebook and part of me wants to suck it up and be fake for a little while until I can get to know people and actually be interested in their lives and part of me wants to say "Who cares if it's just for a summer?"

But then part of me is like, "Don't be ridiculous."

And that part of me is ridiculous. But sometimes it's hard to argue with yourself.