09.12.05
Crisis of Faith
Today, I had every intention of taking myself to the library to do homework. Car had other ideas; she needed a new battery. So after work, we toddled off to Wheel Works and I sat, and sat, and waited for them to repower her electricity and rotate her tires. The guy behind the counter was from Buffalo, NY and talked really fast when he answered the phone. Very nice, with a habit of looking you Right In The Eye when he talked, several discoloured teeth displayed when he smiled.
There were a few other people that came and went out of the waiting room that had horrible stained red couches and chairs, a soda machine and a television. I sat on the floor for a while and tried to study. It sorta worked, except I couldn’t get comfortable and there was no hard surface for me to put my books on.
One guy left after bragging to the real estate lady across the room that he had gone to high school with Teri Hatcher.
Real Estate Lady kept making phone calls while her high performance car was getting the tires worked on, she sorta had this air of not completely understanding nor trusting what she was being told about her tires. That sort of sales person attitude that will tell you anything to close the sale. Plus, she was a real estate agent, they have their very own special attitude too.
When Teri Hatcher Went to High School With Me guy left, I heaved myself off the floor and sat in his chair, which was next to the small coffee table. It was better for support and some comfort, but still hard to study from.
Guiding Light had finished. Then, there’s the premiere episode of Martha Stewart’s new television show. She actually made a joke about not having her ankle bracelet anymore but that the producers had decided knowing where everyone was at any given time was a great idea so they had goldish ankle bracelets made for all her staff members. The cameras moved around as they showed staffers modelling their very fashionable ankle bracelets. Some more stuff about whatever it is that Martha is loved and adored for. Plugs that David Spade (oh, how I can not stand that guy) is going to be on tomorrow’s show. Pictures of him in a poncho and a Martha Stewart wig doing an impression of her. blah blah blah
Really, trying to ignore the whole thing and read. We are supposed to be learning about Materialist history and the Marxist theory of history this week. Interesting excerpt from Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs & Steel. I keep getting swept away in the details of the Moriroi (or something like that) and the Maori and how, even though they started from the same Polynesian roots, developed into two completely different tribes.
One, peaceful with no knowledge of warfare and only wanting enough to supply each person’s needs. The other, the Maori, became warlike with a huge beauracracy and an appetite for attacking other peoples.
One day, the Maori just arrived on the island the Moriroi (I should get off my lazy butt and look that up) occupy and attack them, “according to our customs.” The Maori just arrived and killed everyone, taking over their island. Basically because they could, and believed they should.
Diamond’s main thesis is that history is determined by the physical geography of the place. If there are many resources for food, water and shelter; a large bureaucratic society evolves because there is time to devote to other things besides keeping the community fed and sheltered. If there aren’t many resources, society is more communal because the focus is on keeping the community taken care of.
(Hmm … maybe I will cut and paste that into the discussion forum because that was one of the questions we are supposed to answer: What is Diamond’s thesis?)
Martha is over and now Ellen is on. She is dancing with someone from the audience who winds up in the guest chair and they make a phone call to the guest’s parents about something. I’m not sure.
I’m trying to read Ludmilla Jordanova and not succeeding very well. Our textbook is History in Practice and we are supposed to read Chapter 2. She seems to be spelling out all these different ways of approaching history; all these theories and the like and I start hyperventilating.
“Can I do this?”, I keep asking myself. “It all sounds so … intellectual and … theoretical and … oh dear Clio, what if I can’t do this? What if I turn out to be one of those people who just really likes history and really likes reading it and writing about it in a non-intellectual manner but I can’t do it professionally?” Inside I am having a panic attack. I get like this sometimes when I read a journal and the articles are so academic and intellectual and hard to read. I wonder if there is something I’m not getting or if I’m really cut out for the life of an historian, whatever that may be.
As I’m trying to just get myself calmed down enough to behave like a “normal” human being who isn’t going through a crisis of faith in herself and her chosen major, Guy Behind the Counter comes into the waiting room to tell me Car is ready to whisk me home. Thank goodness.
I am so happy that Car is happy that I drive home and do what every freaked out person should do; eat dinner and take a nap!
Do I feel better? A bit. Writing that last bit about Jordanova got me going again, but I know that I can find a quiet place and read it again and take notes. And maybe that will help. I won’t have the distraction of air guns, and bad tv, and loud people trying to impress each other while I try to read this chapter again. And I will keep telling myself that I must be doing something right because I have a very good GPA and have finished 99% of my General Ed requirements and got accepted into the program I wanted. I have to be doing something right.
Wheel Works is probably not the best place to be Doing History.