People

2003-11-03T01:03:00.000-05:00

There's a boy singing in the same choirs as I am. There was one rehearsal when he came in with handfuls of candy. It looked like he emptied out the nearest vending machine before coming to class. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I don't think he opened his mouth to sing one note at that rehearsal. He kept on emptying bags of candy and pop tarts until there was nothing left.

I was tempted to yell out, "oh my goodness! are you hungry or what?!" but I didn't want to embarass him. The kid was hungry so I let him eat.

2003-06-19T19:59:00.000-04:00

It's been too long since I last posted. You're probably wondering how many lovely people I've crossed paths with but haven't been here to tell you all about them. I apologize. But then again, I think I'm only talking to a wall. Without further adieu, here's a person story.

I was shopping at A.C. Moore (a wonderful craft store) yesterday, the second time I'd been there this week, and joined practically most of the customers in the sticker aisle because there was a great sale on stickers. I really have no use for stickers nor could I come up with a great idea that includes stickers so that I could get in on the 40% off action. I was drooling over these beautiful stickers which were old fashioned typewriter keys with the browning, old condition effect on them. All of a sudden a lady appeared to my left and oogled over the same ones I was looking at. "Oh wow! These are beautiful!" I think she was trying to strike up conversation with me at how nice stickers can look. I was a little startled and just stepped to the right along with everyone else who was perusing the aisle.

A while later I ended up in the scrapbook paper aisle. I continued to drool over pretty paper and all of a sudden the same woman appeared next to me and was looking at the same paper I was eyeing. Out of a whole aisle of paper, she stepped right next to me. "Oh my goodness, these are so pretty .. (More gushing, to get my attention)" I decided to reply, "I know!" "Definitely!" We were both breathtaken by how nice pieces of paper can get. I got too focused on a few pieces of paper and heard her mumble, "Gosh, these are so pretty. I don't do scrapbooks, I should just go home and stamp," then she took her cart and wheeled away.

I'm sorry for not making very much conversation with you stamp lady. You certainly are adorable and hopefully I'll see you again some day. Next time we can talk stickers and paper all you want, until I decide to check out or the store closes. We should just be glad we're not scrapbookers, those people are crazy.

2003-03-12T20:44:00.000-05:00

There are these guys that live directly four floors below me. For reasons beyond me, they've managed to sneak in a drumset and a few guitars into their dormroom. Almost everyday these guys play their guitars and the drums. Almost everytime they play, I can hear them. They're on the 2nd floor. I'm on the 6th. You'd think someone would have complained about the noise problem by now, but nobody has. My poor friends, they live right above them and can hear the drums perfectly as if they were being played in their room. And if you heard them, you'd agree with me when I say they need some lessons and a lot more practice to sound remotely good. Cross your fingers that none of them sneak in an amplifier. Hey, they're playing right now!

2003-03-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

Mayby it's too early to speak, but I couldn't help but tell you about the people I've encountered today.

I'm sitting with my two girlfriends eating a late lunch at our dining hall. There's about 15 other people eating the same late lunch as we are. First off, at a table directly behind me sits this guy we call "muscle head" and he's totally downing a sandwich and practically sticking half of it into his mouth in one bite. He's big and tall and whenever he makes eye contact with me I fear for my life. He scares me. There's another guy in plaid and every few minutes we can't help but glance over and see he's quite the hungry monster as well. Every spoon of food he puts into his mouth the food is piled onto the spoon and the rate he's sticking that spoon in his mouth is phenominal. We all get a bowl of ice cream for dessert and I see him sitting there just letting his food digest. A couple minutes later after he's done with that plate he gets a new plate of a couple slices of pizza. We glance over and see that he stuffs the slice in his mouth, just a few bites and he's done. Like woah! Haven't eaten before buddy? It was just amazing. Wait, wait, wait. When we thought he was just about to leave, he put away his tray and heads to the desert table! A cone of ice cream for the road. Is it safe to say he's finished? I think so.

As the three of us were walking back to our dorm, we shout some lines from the Mr. Deeds movie in the quad to hear our echos. "My back hurts!" I say. "Boob!" we all say. My friend yells "My back hurts!" Then out of nowhere, some random individual whose face we could not find yells out of their window, "Boob!" It was the funniest thing. We don't know who it was that said it, but it made our day even better.

2003-03-04T00:37:00.000-05:00

I love people I call my friends. I find it so boring walking from my dorm to class and back again. What makes the walk more pleasant is seeing a bunch of your friends on the way there. Being able to smile, wave, and say hi makes it better. I've never made such great friends to be able to see people I know and actually stop and have a hearty conversation with them about things. Sure I've got a class to go to, but there's always time to talk to your friends on the way there. It makes a usually boring lecture seem less boring with some excitement thrown in beforehand.

2003-03-04T00:32:00.000-05:00

Watch it, don't burn yourself child.
One of the dining hall workers said that to me this morning while I got a cup of hot chocolate. Apparently the machine wasn't working very properly and poured some hot chocolate on my hand. Need I repeat that it was hot chocolate? I'm surprised it wasn't so excrutiatingly hot that I didn't scream or drop my cup. I have no serious burns, I assure you. But it was awfully nice for her to say that to me. All of the workers are so nice I could tell you about them all day. Another time child.

2003-02-17T01:28:00.000-05:00

My sister Joan and I ate lunch at Pizza Hut today. Our waitress was extremely nice and seemed to enjoy the laid back sunday since we were one of only four parties dining at that time. I noticed she talked with a slight southern accent while she played a guessing game to the picture of Homer Simpson I drew on my napkin using two of the four crayon colors available to me at our table. After a minute I realized she sounded like a character Stephnie Weir plays on Mad TV. The waitress had a certain spunk, a boost of energy, much like the 'Teen Doctor' character on MadTV. Even though she wasn't the best at delivering funny jokes, I still appreciated her attempts of bringing joy into her customers lives. And maybe if she did her hair a certain way she could probably look like Stephnie...

2003-02-10T16:02:00.000-05:00

Waiting for my bagel to toast this morning,
Next to me a girl pouring milk into her bowl of cereal told me that I had really pretty hair. Almost pretty random and unexpectedly, I was still glad to hear such nice comments from someone. "Oh, thank you!!" I said with a big smile on my face. She said you're welcome and walked back to her table to eat.

Considering how messed up the system is at my school, it's all the nice people on campus that keep me here.

2003-02-05T23:37:00.000-05:00

My friend is always telling me about a certain guy who lives in our dorm. What's so special about him? I've been told he's got an unusually big butt for a caucasian male. I have yet to vouch for this, for everytime he gets pointed out to me he's wearing a pair of shorts that conceals the amount of junk he's got in the trunk. I plan to be a spy and snap a picture of the badunkadunk when I see it. Ok, that's not so nice.

2003-01-30T12:11:00.000-05:00

It's a first for the new year to find a nice person in New Haven, Connecticut. A little backtrack, I live and attend a college in New Haven and its campus is an open one, meaning parts of the campus isn't enclosed in a little section like other schools, but the buildings are spread about in an area that allows public operations, traffic, etc. to feely move through the campus. For me to get from my dorm to class, I have to cross a street on which many cars pass through. Even though there are many signs cautioning that you're driving through a part of campus where a majority of students walk, many people don't have the courtesy to stop to let students cross the street on the crosswalks. It's gotten as bad students are brave enough to start walking into the street to force oncoming traffic to stop and let them finish crossing. If you're lucky enough you can weave through cars while they're stopped at the light or get to the crosswalk at a time of day when there are hardly any cars passing. Even doing the safest thing possible to get across the street, there have been many days I'd be so close to getting myself hit and those close calls do a job to my little heart.

But one mid-morning, I stopped at the curb to let 3 cars pass and then cross safely. I wasn't in a hurry and wasn't at all anxious to cross and put myself in danger. While waiting for the third car to pass, an intimidating SUV, I was surprised to see it come to a full stop. I wasn't expecting that to happen since there were no other cars after it I knew I could go soon. Since it did stop, it was an indication that the woman in the car gave me an oppourtunity to cross so I took it. As I crossed I looked at the woman in the driver's seat, as thankful as I am, I did the courteous "thank you" wave and she replied with the courteous "no problem" head nod. That one moment of niceness stuck in my head for the rest of the day and showed me that there are some nice people in this city.

2003-01-30T11:54:00.000-05:00

A certain Statistics professor wears a watch-calculator. I thought those were a thing of the past, something that people thought was cool enough to wear back around the late eighties. I remember my older sister had one. I was amazed at the fact that something you wear on your wrist, doesn't just tell you what time it is but what equaled 463 minus 184. Though a bit oversized compared to my wrist and had too many buttons that my little fingers could touch, I thought it was the invention of the century. Over time people went back to their old watches and chucked the calculator part idea and that was it. In the last few years I think I saw them being sold at Wal-Mart but had a hunch that they weren't big sellers in this decade. In 2003, low and behold, the professor still sports his on the left wrist. Something so small and compact, a tiny computer to figure out mathematical equations isn't such a bad idea considering the professor teaches a subject dealing with lots of numbers.

2003-01-17T23:51:00.000-05:00

"I really like your frames!"
"Thanks."
"They look good on you. I'm sure you enjoy getting compliments like that."
"HA. I really do!"

I was only tagging along with my sister to her vision appointment and didn't even want to be noticed at all. That's what one of the associates said to me as we walked into the office. She made my day. I hardly get any compliments on my eyeglasses and wouldn't care less about what other people think of how they look on me anyways. Sometimes I tend to rely on those few flattering phrases once in a while to think I'm not the only one who thinks I picked out a good pair of glasses two years ago. Mind you, I still have doubts that the frames are too small for my face and my eyes suffer because I end up only using them when I really need to. Then those doubts disappear when someone else says something good about them. My confidence is a frail little monster but we're helping each other to get strong. And sometimes hearing a few good words from a perfect stranger helps.

2002-12-16T20:43:00.000-05:00

I was walking back to my room after class and it was the second time that I'd pass a girl who's wearing the same jacket as me. A purple Adidas jacket that I bought nearly five years ago and BJs Wholesale Club. I've worn it much longer than any other normal person would keep a jacket and thought I'd be the only person still wearing it. Especially it being purple, not very many people choose such a color for a jacket. Black or blue is a popular jacket color, right?

The first time I saw this girl wearing the same jacket, I was surprised and happy at the same time. Surprised that someone else, out of all the people on a college campus, and out of all the people to pass by, would have the same jacket. Happy because she's got great taste by buying the jacket.

"Nice jacket," she says, as she smiles and passes me by. "You too!" I reply and giggle.

Truthfully, the jacket looked better on her. Mainly because she's got the right size for her tall size while I've got a large size on a small body.

2002-12-09T10:21:00.000-05:00

Overhearing people's conversations

A week ago, while shopping at Rasberry Junction in Ledyard, CT. Raspberry Junction is a store that sells crafted merchandise by local crafters in the state and neighboring states. I wouldn't have expected a girl, probably in her mid 20's, who was shopping there to say to her male companion, "I'm thinking of making Christmas cards this year," as a response to the guy's reminder to buy Christmas cards before the end of the day. It kinda made me happy to hear such a thing because handmade Christmas cards are the best coming from people who love you who made something with love.

Last night at our school's cafe, while eating dinner with a couple friends. It was nearing closing time and a few of the cafeteria employees were sitting at a table in the corner, chatting up a storm because there wasn't much work to do on an un-busy night. Out of the blue, I hear one of them loudly say, "My hands smell like feet!" That was all I heard clearly and now it's burning in my mind because I'm wondering what the hell that man was talking about.

2002-12-05T21:38:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in the lounge area on my floor of my residence hall. While waiting for a friend to come back from the bathroom so we could play a few games of Uno, I sat on the couch to watch a Dave Matthews Band concert playing on tv. A couple minutes later a guy walks by me and sees what I'm watching. He says, "Tom Jones?" My head turned towards his direction to give him a confused look, but before I almost asked him why in God's name did he think that Dave Matthews was Tom Jones, he quickly corrected himself and said "Dave Matthews."

"Yeah that's right, Dave Matthews."

2002-11-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

Hello and welcome. This blog, appropriately named "People," is aimed at posting entries all about people. Stories describing people that strike your fancy, people that you see every morning on your way to work, people that bumped into you 5 minutes ago and made a sudden difference in your life. No gossipping. Sitting in a mall food court or on a park bench I like to people watch. Seeing other people function in their day-to-day lives is a helluva lot more interesting than my life. I'm the only person posting here for now, but if you'd like to join in and post about people, let me know. Other than that, thanks for visiting and please come again soon.