Thursday, July 10, 2008

at Lewis and Clark College's law library

I got to the law library (lawbrary?) of Lewis and Clark College, which is a few miles south of downtown Portland and a couple miles off Route 43 if you take the bike trail from the college's main entrance near Lake Oswego. The 'brary is open to the general public until 7PM, which gives me a bit of time to work on some things (I'll likely come back here tomorrow).

A few notes:

1. The knee brace-- and I've never worn one before-- makes a significant difference in how my right knee feels.

2. I got a haircut in Vancouver-- my last major act in the state of Washington. It wasn't that great: the barber and I suffered a communication breakdown. You see, I have Korean hair, which behaves in a typically Korean fashion, so Korean stylists and barbers know what to do with it. When I go to a salon in Seoul and ask for a regular cut, I simply tell the stylist to cut my hair "the normal way." That's usually all I need to say, even if it's a stylist I don't know; it's rare to hear someone ask for clarification. Here in the States, where everything is PERSONALIZED TO SUIT INDIVIDUAL TASTES, it would seem that stylists (I went to a salon, not to a men's barbershop) assume nothing and ask everything. But the language they use goes over my head: "So you're saying it's OK for me to use a Number Two on you?" I got a couple questions like that from my cutter, and even after asking for clarification (a Number Two is a type of razor), I still didn't get anything like the cut I would have gotten in Korea.

In America, a normal haircut would seem to be far more expensive than one in Korea.* The base charge for my cut in Vancouver was $15, plus tip, with no shampooing included; in Korea, the same cut (done better) would have cost me $8-10, and would have included not only a full shampooing but also a full wipe-down of all the clippings from my ears and neck and shirt collar (in Korea, no hair would ever have reached my shirt collar). I came away from my Vancouver experience wondering whether my stylist was a rank beginner, or whether I really didn't understand the salon/barbershop culture in the States. The latter is possible: whenever I'm home, it's usually my mother who takes care of my hair.

3. I'm thankful that, in Portland, the intersections are marked with two street signs instead of just one, as was often the case in many Washington cities. In Washington, if you're traveling on a main road, what often happens is that there'll be a sign that names the road at your entry point (assuming you've entered the road at a large intersection), but after that, you'll only see signs for the smaller cross streets. This was a navigational pain on many occasions, especially since I wasn't always sure at what point a given road changed names.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm suddenly dissing Washington now that I'm out of it-- Lord, no. Come to DC, the other Washington, and you'll see plenty of road-related irrationality! I don't make my street sign critiques from a position of superiority; I'm simply a walker noting what works and what doesn't. Knowing nothing more about Oregon than what I've learned of Portland, it'd be out of bounds for me to make sweeping Washington/Oregon comparisons, but Portland's well-marked streets are a relief.

4. Today I stopped and talked with a homeless dude named Jesus. The guy was a gringo, so he pronounced his name "JEE-zuss," not "hey, Zeus!" Jesus comes from the East Coast (North Carolina) and recently broke up with his girlfriend; he's been in Portland for the past eight years. I didn't ask what he was doing there. The fourth and fifth fingers of his right hand appear to be in some sort of arthritic spasm; I don't know whether it hurt him to shake my hand. After I talked with him, it suddenly occurred to me that I should have pointed him to the Metanoia Peace Community; welcoming folks is their entire purpose! If I see Jesus on the street tomorrow, perhaps I'll tell him about the place.

5. No go on the BlackBerry today. I went to the AT&T store on Broadway and Grand; I spoke with the warranty people (16-minute wait when I made the call from the AT&T office; yesterday, a similar call was preceded by a 13-minute hold due to "unusually high call volume"); the warranty folks repeated that I should try to do the software update myself, but the problem is that, to do the update, I need Dad's AT&T registration information (login ID, password, etc.), which I don't have. Am thinking of just sending the BlackBerry back home and letting the family deal with it; they can send it back to me when it's behaving well. It peeves me to no end that this problem occurred barely six weeks into the walk. Could weather have been the cause of the problem? My sweat (I tried very hard not to sweat on the BlackBerry, but kept it in its case, and in my chest pocket when it wasn't raining)? Isn't the thing designed to take a beating? I never dropped it, never lost it-- the handheld was working fine right up until the crash... what the hell happened?

OK-- I've uploaded some photos of the 18th Street Peace House (Metanoia's base of operations) and am about to blog them. Stay tuned.




*I know there are exceptions. I had a $5 cut in northern Virginia... but get this: the place was run by Koreans.


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