Tuesday, July 11, 2006

This Past Weekend

Last week was odd. July 4th fell on a Tuesday, which led many people on campus to take Monday off. Some even took the whole week off. Once I gave some thought to taking time off, the office was so short-staffed I knew the request would receive a sound "No."

All day last Tuesday felt like a Saturday; I kept thinking the next day would be a Sunday. I was constantly reminding myself that I had to work the next day, and felt slightly disgruntled.

I worked as a test proctor this past Saturday. The task is relatively undemanding, and pays well. Still, a 7 hour exam (with a 45 minute lunch break) is a chunk out of one's day.

One of my fellow proctors asked how one stays awake. My response was that one stays on one's feet as much as possible. Although the examinees do not require extremely close scrutiny, I do my best to create the impression they are being watched. I walk back and forth; I move to different areas of the room. I stand, and rock on my feet.

Another trick is to count things. For example, the same proctor counted the number of blue shirts in the room. Seeing as there were a number of blue shirts, and a wide variety of shades of blue, I imagine that was a fun exercise.

I like to count the number of women. The examinees are taking their Board exam for anesthesiology, a discipline that has historically been mostly male. The chief proctor explained that there had once been concern about how the gasses would affect child-bearing. However, the current anesthesia delivery system is so efficient that such concerns are no longer valid.

Even so, there were only 5 women registered for the exam, out of 60 total. In other words, if 60 is a representative sampling of the discipline, less than 10% are women.

Once shirt color had been mentioned (over lunch), I decided to informally sample the other clothing choices. Shades of blue was definitely the most popular color. Next in popularity were shades of red (from coral to pink, and beyond). There were a handful who wore yellow. And two or three who wore white.

Only two people wore any kind of head wear. Both were men, and both wore baseball caps (backwards). One of those caps was pretty tattered; perhaps the owner had actually played baseball while wearing it.
This coming weekend is dominated by the Woody Guthrie Festival, and the two poetry readings associated with it. The first reading is Friday, beginning at 8, in Norman (at the Jacobson House, if you're in the area). However, poets have been asked to be there about 6 p.m. for a pot-luck supper and chapbook construction. It will be a limited edition chapbook (70 copies) featuring Oklahoma poets.

The second reading begins at 1 p.m. Saturday in Okemah, at the United Methodist Church. The venue is slightly off the beaten path, but the event has received decent publicity, and I expect a number of folk will be in the audience.

I have been asked to be a featured reader on both occasions. I suspect I was asked primarily because I designed the chapbook cover and poster. I haven't read or published in some time, so I suspect I'm an unknown quantity in the mind of the organizers.

Here's a list of what I plan to read:Speaking of Woody Guthrie, PBS stations will air a documentary on his life Wednesday, July 12, at 8 p.m.

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