Social Experiment

I went to the grocery store a couple of days ago and, as I stepped out of my car, I heard classical music playing rather than the standard quasi-rock that is usually playing at the strip-mall setting in which my grocery store is situated. The quality of sound indicated to me (what with my powerful and keen skills of observation) that the music was being played live, so I began to look around, wondering what was going on. As I approached the front of the store, I spotted a man sitting on the sidewalk, just to the side of the entrance, playing a cello with his open case off to the side. The case had several coins in it and I have to admit, I was surprised there were no bills. This guy could really play. It was puzzling, though. What was he doing begging at the grocery store?

I suppose I operate under the assumption that people who beg come from destitute families. I readily acknowledge that many homeless are mentally ill (thanks to the deinstitutionalization that took place in the 70s and 80s) and a few may have some degree of education. I never really considered the depth of my assumption until this moment. Regardless of individual traits and charactersitics of the homeless (individually and collectively), I have always figured that they have no family to whom they can turn. At any rate, the guy playing his cello at the grocery store had obviously been formally educated (unless he was one of a very small number of people who is naturally inclined, which is not terribly likely), which indicates that he had access to financial resources at one time. This is why I found an apparently homeless man playing a cello outside of the grocery store strange. I began wondering why he was there. Many ideas came to me - perhaps his love of playing the cello superceded his interest in earning money and since he was unable to secure a paying position playing, he would just do what he loved and hopefully get by. Maybe he had a substance abuse problem (also very common in the homeless population) and was not able to keep a job (playing cello or nay) at all, but discovered that he could make enough money playing outside the grocery store to earn a meager (or maybe even substantial) living. And then, I thought that it was funny that none of the usual panhandlers were in front of the store that night. Apparently, the cellist had embarassed them. After all, he was earning any money he got, while they were simply begging. Then, it all became clear - the cellist is part of some social experiment! Maybe the cellist was conducting the experiment himself, but I suspect it was the state. The research question would be:: "Does having live performers (homeless or otherwise) decrease the incidence of panhandling?" In this case, the answer was a resounding yes.

Look at me!

I'm officially a sell-out! I often make fun of those who blog. Why? I can't imagine thinking that my thoughts are so riveting that other people (outside of the group I call "friends" who are forced one way or another to tolerate my drivel) might actually care to read them. So, for those of you with nothing better to do, here are my thoughts and activities for the day. Brace yourself.

I applied for a job today. A job I want very much. So far the job-seeking activities have not gone as well as I had originally hoped. Things looked good. I was getting interviews for each job I applied. However, two weeks later, I would inevitably receive the "thanks-but-no-thanks" letter that I'm going to continue believing most of you have seen at one time or another. With graduation looming in the not-so-distant future (not to mention rent which is in the less-distant future), my interest in finding a job increases exponentially each day (I would make a chart to demonstrate, but have not yet discovered all of the ways in which I might be able to blog such captivating items, but I'm sure you can all imagine the j-shaped curve that such an exponential increase would create - scintillating, I know).

If anyone out there has the time (and clearly you do if you're reading this) or the inclination, please focus your thoughts on my getting this job. I'll keep you posted...