Cutting the Floor

Last night we had to work on the drumline floor again.  We've done it for each of the past three weeks, and I know that I'm getting very impatient with it, and I suspect some other people probably are as well.  Some people just don't even come anymore.  We have to go to the Blue Band Building, which is northeast of campus and pretty far from me, and load the floor into Kyle's (our tenor tech) green conversation van and then drive it to the Wagner Building, which is the building used mostly for the R.O.T.C. programs.  There's a huge "bay" in the bottom that we call the armory or the arms bay.  It's really just a huge open space where we can unfold our floor.  There are two gas grills on one side, a lot of picnic tables, and there are stone slabs in one corner that have answers to unlisted questions.  Some examples of things written on them are "Art can't save your woman" and "No, but it always has happened and always will happen."  Apparently they were laid out in front of the Forum earlier in the year with questions posted nearby, and people answered in chalk.  I don't know what the point it.  There are also at least three pull-up bars, and a very very high ladder in one corner.  Everything is very gray, very industrial, very impersonal, and boring.  There are a lot of windows on oneside and it is almost always very cold in the bay.  Sometimes R.O.T.C. people practice their drills when we're painting.  They're usually nice.

I came late last night - supposed to be there at 8:30 and got there at about 10 - and we were only just as I was walking in ready to make measurements to cut the floor.  I knoew this would happen; the staff didn't give us great plans and they apparently spent a long time figuring out exactly what they wanted.  Kyle was sitting in the corner near a table with his computer.  Mikey brought out some straight-edges and switch blades so we could get cutting.  Cass cut the first line at the bottom of the flap and that went fine for the most part.

I should say, we're cutting out flaps of an old floor so that we can tape them to our new floor and pull them back in the end of the show to reveal a new design.  Or something like that.

Anyway, we had to go up the floor a little bit to cut the other end of the flap.  Isaac was down with the straight-edge and blade doing the cutting, and Cass was standing nearby giving a little instruction.  He said things like, "I gotta see that bicep man!  Flex it!"  He was telling him to cut really strongly to make sure he cut through the tarp all the way; it's sort of annoying to try and not get it through.  After Isaac had cut through about a eighteen inches, Steve W noticed that our real floor was underneath where Isaac was cutting, and he was probably cutting right through it.  We pulled apart where Isaac was cutting, and realized that yes, he had cut the floor.  Not just through one layer, but two or three.  We were all pretty upset, but realized we could just put black tape on it or on the back and it'd be okay.  We did just that, and I believe it will turn out okay.  Somehow, throughout the whole process though, the blame shifted to Cass because he told Isaac to put pressure on it, rather than on Isaac, who actually did the cutting, or everyone else, who didn't notice that the floor was underneath.  We sort of owe our show to Steve.  We seriously almost slit our floor in like four places.

Peace out.

Cognitive Biases

Recently I stumbled across Wikipedia's List of Cognitive Biases.  Some of them are really intensely interesting, and I definitely suggest you check some of them out.  Some of the ones that blew my mind in particular were these:

Illusion of asymmetric insight - People perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them

Illusion of transparency - People overestimate others' ability to know them, and they also overestimate their ability to know others

Outcome bias - the tendency to judge a decision by its eventual outcome instead of based on the quality of the decision at the time it was made

I feel like if we all had an active awareness of our biases, we would all probably be much better people overall.  I'm going to make a conscious effort to keep these in mind from now on.  Hoping it'll help me understand people a little bit more and be more sympathetic.

Peace out.

Showers and Towels

When I was younger, I used to not take showers very often.  But I'm not talking like baby-young, I mean like, up until fifth grade.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't until the end of fourth or sometime in fifth grade that I actually started to shower more often than like once every Sunday.  Looking back, I guess that's sort of gross.  But at the same time, I don't remember my hair being greasy, and I didn't often get dirty, no one ever told me I smelled, and kids don't even start to really sweat until they hit puberty.  So it's not that bad, is it?  I used to think it was ridiculous to shower every day, and honestly I still do, and often I take a shower every other day if I'm not disgusting, although I doubt I could get by other people showering once a week now.

I also used to not understand that you can reuse towels.  Every time I used a towel, I would put it in the hamper to be washed.  At one point, my brother or my mom talked to me about it and told me that I should use it a few times before washing it.  Instead of actually doing that, I sort of just decided to not put the towels in the hamper ever.  So for a long time I washed towels every time, and then for a long time I never washed them at all.  I think I'm striking a sort of happy medium now, but I'm not really sure.

Peace out.