It's happened a few times. My computer starts to slow down. It beeps at me. Programs shut down for no apparent reason. I sit staring at the screen while Internet Explorer takes forever to load. I get a half-dozen comments from friends about how I should have gotten a Mac.
And the dread begins.
Because I know that I can't fix the problem. No matter how many times I restart the program or run anti-virus software, I can't make it any better. I know I have to take my computer to OIT. But I put it off for weeks, suffering the slow-loading web-pages and disconcerting whirring sounds. Why? Because OIT makes me feel like a dumbass.
This isn't exactly their fault. When I come to their help desk, laptop in hand, giving them a vague and confused explanation for what's wrong, they're always helpful. They listen. They do what they do, and my computer comes out in much better shape. But I still feel like an idiot, explaining my computer in layman's terms as the OIT guy looks at me with a somewhat bored, a somewhat, dare I say, condescending gaze.
No, I do not understand computers. I use one, and I like it to work. I get overwhelmed when it stops working. I use terms like "messed-up" and "weird" to describe its performance.
The thing is these small encounters or silly mistakes that make us feel like idiots. Our teachers in elementary school always told us there was no such thing as a stupid question. Well, there is. And Duke is riddled with opportunities to ask these questions.
Perkins and Bostock are confusing. For me, at least. Both buildings have the same sort of look to them, the same scatterings of reference and circulation desks, computer clusters, chairs and bookshelves. The stacks themselves are an elaborate maze of books-some of which, apparently, are in transition from one building to the other-all labeled with a system of numbers and letters. I kind of get the numbers. I don't get the letters. Wandering around the deepest bowels of Perkins in search of a book on gender and gaze in Ovid's Metamorphoses that probably isn't that popular, I got lost. And confused. And, honestly, a little curious about the prevalence of sexual predators camping out in the stacks.
After the requisite procrastination, I went downstairs to ask a librarian for help. I gave him the call number. He looked at the number. He looked at me. The same look the OIT guy gave me.
"It's upstairs," he said.
Oh. Thanks.
A stupid answer for, perhaps, a stupid question.
It's hard not to feel incompetent at times like these. When you get on the wrong bus, get lost in the quads or forget a homework assignment. It just seems remarkable that we're some of the best and the brightest, enrolled in all sorts of elaborate, complicated classes, and yet we can still feel like idiots with one inconsequential stumble. I ask myself, If I can translate Ovid, why can't I find a book on him? No one knows absolutely everything, and simple bits of knowledge fall through the cracks. But, as many fellow columnists have pointed out before, Duke is a high-pressure place. Maybe we feel that because we have gotten thus far, life should henceforth be a seamless train of accomplishments.
In the words of Professor James Bonk, "Not so, Lone Ranger." We still do, and say and ask stupid things.
Maybe Duke is set up to let you stumble around a little bit because the stumbling around teaches you that you need people. Not just your friends, who are good at helping you navigate your way back to Edens from various points on West but are completely useless when it comes to curing whatever ails your computer. You also need the complete strangers who hold the keys of knowledge, even if that knowledge is when the next C-1 is coming. No one is completely self-sufficient, and the process of asking for aid, of humbling yourself and seeking help, or directions, or whatever, is an education in itself.
The overhead light in my room has started flickering on and off for no reason. My roommate and I have ignored it for a few weeks because we have no idea how to deal with it. It seems that we may have to ask someone to come in and fix it for us. I imagine someone from RLHS will come to our room, give us one of those looks and then do something really trivial like change the bulb.
We'll feel stupid. And so it goes.
Lindsay White is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs every other Tuesday.
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