Review: Personal Days

You're young.  You're restless, and every day you wake up earlier than you really want to hobble into the strictly-scheduled bathroom and create some semblance of "I'm alert" on your face and give yourself some mental pep-talk for the day ahead while you're washing the lethargy away.  All this preparation to go to a job.  Probably your first job.  Most likely not your last job.  And likely not your favorite job.  This is what the first year looks like to most undergraduates that find themselves working in an office that isn't quite i-banking/consultancy crazy but also isn't as free-spirited as how you'd imagine the lives of those young reporters and publicists are (although it's probably true that, as you're lathering that Clearasil on your face in the shower, they're mindlessly rubbing a stick of deodorant on, wondering where the weekend went).

It was this general feeling of being stuck in the workplace doldrums that made me notice the interesting cover of the book Personal Days by Ed Park, and it was my own general fed-up-ness with Corporate America that moved me to buy it after reading the little blurb on the back, which I will conveniently lay out for you here:

In an unnamed New York-based company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels.  There's Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in his tooth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who gives unwanted back rubs, aka "jackrubs" - to his co-workers.

On a Sunday, one of them is called at home.  And the Firings begin.

[Personal Days is] ... a novel for anyone who has ever worked in an office and wondered: "Where does the time go?  Where does the life go?  And whose banana is in the fridge?"

Before I get into my opinions of the book and what, if anything, it made me felt, let me go ahead and just lay out some of the basics.  It's a quick, easy and inexpensive read, taking only $13 out of my wallet and a couple hours of my time (the story only spans about 241 pages of this small paperback).  What's more, Ed's interesting use of formatting and storytelling (moving from first person descriptive, to casual, to an intimate confession from one colleague to another) draws you in, and if you've been working in real job for any span beyond the typical internship-commitment, definitely hooks you.

And the story itself?  Park does a great job of casually introducing you to each character, giving you a small glimpse into their personalities, dreams and backgrounds but leaving most of their personal development up to your own pure conjecture.  You are brought into this unnamed company through water cooler conversation and incomplete memos scrawled on Post-Its, and you are introduced to workers at their most awkward moments, sometimes only very briefly.  In essence Park makes you another worker at the office, privy to all the gossip that travels between cubes but not a connoisseur of any particular information- after all, how much do you really even know about the people that you actually work with?

I found the story, the dialog and the way in which Park unfolds his plot completely believable, totally engrossing and altogether endearing.  As much as I wanted each character to reveal more about themselves, to succeed in the office, I had an equally strong desire for them to be let go, to be given the opportunity to find that piece of them that invariably went missing while sunning day after day under the florescent lights of the floor.  Park creates a completely realistic (at times scarily so) portrait of the workplace that could really be applied to any industry or city, and at once thoroughly captures the essence of this generation's cynicism while simultaneously showcasing our enduring and ironic optimism.

To put it shortly: I completely enjoyed it, and recommend that you check it out.

in keeping with a theme...

another post about feelings!

so i just finished reading Gloria Naylor's "The Women of Brewster Place," (don't read the editorial reviews at the bottom of the amazon page if you don't want the whole story ruined for you) and first of all i have to strongly recommend that if you read the book, you don't read it in a public place, like the train. that said, it was a really wonderful book, but one quote in particular stood out to me and has sort of been haunting me ever since i finished the book. without giving too much away, two of the women have a fight, and one of them walks out the door. in a couple pages, something really horrible is going to happen to her to make me wish i had not read that chapter. anyways, the narrator says this about the one who stays:

"theresa would live to be a very old woman and would replay those words in her mind a thousand times and then invent a thousand different things she could have said or done to keep the tall yellow woman in the green and black dress from walking out of that door for the last time in her life. but tonight she was a young woman and still in search of answers, and she made the fatal mistake that many young women do of believing that what never existed was just cleverly hidden beyond her reach."

i just wanted to share that, because i didn't want to be the only person feeling extra-depressed about that line. as a young woman still in search of answers, there are about a million things i can think of that i believe are just 'cleverly hidden beyond my reach.' so damn. this chapter of the book was just devastating.

that said, i totally recommend you read the book. the writing was beautiful, and the stories really just speak to a lot of different pieces of you.

coincidence or power: think about it.

First off:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

We here at Afropologe look forward to raging, griping, poking fun and having a generally great time with all of you in 2008. :)

Now to my blog..
Have you ever started your day with something really shitty or annoying happen? Like you wake up, brush your teeth, get in the shower and as you shave you either cut yourself or like bang your elbow? Or on the way to work somebody cuts you off and then the rest of the day seem to just go right down the crapper? I’m assuming you said “yes” and if you didn’t – not because you haven’t experienced these exact occurrences but because you, for some reason, lead a completely happy and worry free life – then you are a weirdo. Well, what if I told you that there are lots of people out there that believe that you’re kinda at fault for the day you’re having, and that if you put a smile on your face all you want (and more!) is right there for you?
Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy stupid to me, too, which is why when my Mom gave me the book “A Complaint Free World: The 21 Day challenge” I rolled my eyes and was pretty annoyed. Ever since that “The Secret” shizz came out a few months ago this whole “power of thought” idea has been picking up steam (and a hell of a lot of revenue) all over the country and world. People are trying to change their thoughts according to the “law of attraction” that says that your thoughts send out some sort of vibrations into the world that attract to you exactly what you’re thinking about; So if you worry about fixing your debt, concentrating on that debt will attract more to you, but if you look forward to and think about being financially stable and successful, you will attract this sort of success to you.
I’m sure that if you read this blog that you know me by know, and you know that I’m gonna have a couple things to say about this idea. First let me start with what’s problematic about it- I mean... can we say hegemonic? If this isn’t hegemony at work then I don’t know what is. Convince a bunch of people that they reap what they sow in their thoughts so if they are unsuccessful or experience injustice they feel that it is, somehow, partially their own fault and are discouraged from action. I mean, in regards to the whole financial standpoint of this- we live in a Capitalist society, and in such a society it’s pretty much impossible for everyone to have financial security and stability. I mean, that’s just how it is, so saying to people that if they think positively they’ll get it isn’t really effective since it’s all a numbers game and you just can’t beat some odds. I mean, there are some situations where getting angry and complaining is absolutely necessary in order to change things or to bring notice to a situation that needs action.
On the other hand, I can see a potential benefit in this. I mean, I don’t think it’s very easy to argue that the world does not need a little less negativity. There’s a lot to be said for taking a conscious step toward bettering the way you approach the world around you, and even if the benefit is only felt by you, it’s still something worth trying. I’m a big believer in kindness having major effects on people without major efforts and I feel like putting less negativity in the world (via being “complaint free”) could possibly help.
So what is the challenge, you ask? It involves tracking your complaining (complaints, criticisms or negative judgments- oh and gossip, too) by using a physical marker- so if you have one of the complaint-free sponsored bracelets then every time you complain you must switch the bracelet from one wrist to the next. The goal, and challenge, is to go 21 consecutive days without switching your bracelet. Each time you switch your bracelet, no matter how far along in the 21 days you’ve gone, you must start over again. In the book (which I read, it was pretty easy and quick to get through) they say that it takes the average person 4-8 months to go the 21 days.
Where does that leave me? Well, I’ve decided to give it a go, and ever since the 26th of December I’ve been making a modest attempt to track my own negativity. I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully it won’t take me TOO long. And I’m experiencing a few of the benefits now.

So- what do you think? Does this seem like a nice idea or just a fleeting fad for Oprah addicted Moms?

If you take up the challenge, let me know. We can be strong together!

P.S. The complaints only count for spoken words- not thoughts or written things, so this blog is FREEEE RANGE! Yes! Excellent.

stop trying to punch God!

Okay, so for those of you who probably got really confused after reading the title of this blog post and subsequently noticing the promotional poster for New Line Cinema's recent release The Golden Compass here is a quick synopsis of 'the deal:'

Okay so basically this movie is based off of the first installment of a set of 3 books written by Phillip Pullman, a great writer, kind of a tool, and an atheist, for those of you who were unaware. Now, for those of you who are somewhat interested in seeing this movie (and the sequels that New Line will no doubt produce) and reading the His Dark Materials books, I will put out the warning now that this blog post will probably contain some sort of story spoilers. So, you know. Be on the lookout for that sort of thing.

Now to get more into the actual substance of this post. I will start by saying that Pullman's novel and the series that it goes with ranks among the top of my all-time favorite books- it's imaginative, well-written and exciting, and I personally think that Pullman does an excellent job of creating fantastical worlds so different from our own and simultaneously linking them all together in a way that allows almost any reader to relate (which is, if you read them, probably a big point). I read the first book when I was about 12 years old and fell in love, but was unable to read the rest for some reason (probably laziness) until this past year, my senior year of college.

So, here comes one of those spoilers for those of you who are beware'ing of them: an interesting and somewhat disturbing feature of the book for me? The fact that they kill God. Or at least the literal figure of God in the worlds of the book. I'll admit that having read the final two books (The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass) as a more mature adult I was able to take this scene for what it was worth- a bit of literary drama dreamt up by an atheist who, when all is said and done, really seems to want people to put a little more thought into their beliefs (since these beliefs can and have driven people to, in some cases, do terrible things). But what are people's reactions?

Well actually, in most cases- absolutely nothing. That's because, even though the books themselves are really great reads, people just don't bother to actually read anything anymore. As a result, although the books were originally published back in 1995 (which means that I read the first one two years after it was published- go me!) now that a film is being made a good 12 years later people have suddenly started getting their underwear in a twist about the basic premise of the film and the books on which it is based.

Catholics are mad because it makes the catholic church look bad. Christians are mad because... it makes the Catholic church look bad, and the whole "killing God" thing at the end really isn't helping matters. But what I find most problematic is that, instead of using this book to better understand the ways of thinking of others and as a tool to strengthen their faith, they immediately have jumped up in arms about it, most probably without even having read two paragraphs of the stories (I'm sure they let their preachers give them the basics of it). I mean.. it's just so.. ignorant.

And don't get me wrong at all- I am Christian myself and am not ashamed or afraid to say that I am a strong believer and have a close personal relationship with God, but that close personal relationship does not allow me to feel threatened by other opinions or shy away from knowledge in fear. It seems to me that if a person is strong and sure in their beliefs then it'd take a lot more than a book and an expensive ass movie to change their minds...

What do you think?

yet another gay celeb...

oh wait, he's not actually real. still, apparently dumbledore is gay. which i find to be quaint. i was going to let brittany post this since i know she loves harry potter more than i do, but this way it'll be a fun surprise for her too. plus i think she is still out of town.

apparently some fan asked Rowling if Dumbledore "ever finds true love," and she responds "Dumbledore is gay." which in retrospect, i find to be a tad odd because it in no way answers the question. but i'm guessing he doesn't, since she never mentioned that he had. which is really too bad, because he was pretty cool.


update: a quote from one of the books, pointed out to me by sara -

Veelas have no effect on me whatsoever. Curious, that."
- Albus Dumbledore

!

The new Harry Potter movie and book are out. Are you watching/reading? I know I am.
That is all.