{"id":131,"date":"2013-12-19T00:47:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/?p=131"},"modified":"2013-12-19T00:47:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:47:58","slug":"manos-the-hands-of-labor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Manos: The Hands of Labor"},"content":{"rendered":"

The past several weeks, I’ve been working in a friend’s metal shop, running a chop saw, drill press, and grinder, carrying beams from place to place, screwing in bolts and popping rivets into holes, and, in general, lending a hand with some of the more mindless aspects of what goes on there. The end\u00a0products of our efforts form wheelchair ramps which are then shipped nationwide, although I still remain mostly ignorant of how the pieces fit together. As with anything new, I’m still learning what’s what, but I’m getting better. As a result of my efforts, though, my fingers are covered with tiny cuts and nicks; I’ve gone soft during my time focusing on school and lost all the callouses\u00a0I had\u00a0built up on my hands. Now, without that natural protection,\u00a0I have to start from scratch<\/em> *ba-dum-chhhhh*.<\/p>\n

To be perfectly honest, there’s\u00a0a part of me that’s always been fond of manual labor. As much as I enjoy my more abstract pursuits, I take a\u00a0lot of\u00a0satisfaction in the tangible nature of this kind of work– there’s somthing great about being able to see physical progress as one works. There’s something about blue-collar work that has always felt powerful, even manly to me (he said as he brushed aluminum shavings from his beard), and, as much as I’ve lacked for real exercise throughout the school year, a little heavy lifting will do me good. Even the mindless nature of the work appeals to me; I do my best thinking when I’m busy with a simple task (mowing the grass is a great example), and this is a great chance for me to decompress after a trying school semester.<\/p>\n

My one regret is that with my schedule I’ve not really had time to do much job hunting or to work on my writing projects. I have several short stories I need to complete, a novella in severe need of some revision, and, of course, the constantly looming novel; We’ll see how much of that I get to over Christmas break next week.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, it’s nice to have steady work. Since I had no income during my student teaching semester, my savings are pretty much gone by this point. It’s nice to feel my pockets growing slightly heavier again as a result of my job. Of course, that extra weight could just be from the aluminum shavings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past several weeks, I’ve been working in a friend’s metal shop, running a chop saw, drill press, and grinder, carrying beams from place to place, screwing in bolts and popping rivets into holes, and, in general, lending a hand with some of the more mindless aspects of what goes on there. The end\u00a0products of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions\/133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.joshstrnad.ztechcomputers.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}