Nil's Bakery: My Best Summer Job Yet

Before the summer really started and while I was talking to him about summer jobs, Travis Hellstrom suggested to me that I try to find work at the biggest company I could possibly find. The reason for that is because big companies are overloaded with money and full of employee policy so that they pay good money, and the benefits are huge if you're willing, as we are, to work when normal middle-aged humans would rather be napping by a fire. Naturally, I managed to do the exact opposite.

I work at a place called Nil's Bakery & Cafe, a little eatery in the historic commercial district of downtown Varina run by a Turkish husband and wife, Mustafa and Sibel. I am their one and only employee. I feel extremely privileged because I feel like I have a chance to support exactly the kind of business I love: the kind that I can see. Not to mention the free surprise pastries they give me nearly every day (today it was lemon squares).

What I like so much about this place is that it isn't anything like a McDonald's. It's owned and operated by the people I see and work with every day. They personally serve their customers themselves, and I bet they would laugh if I mentioned anything like a "Nil's Corporate Headquarters". Instead, Mustafa and Sibel are where the rubber hits the road, working with all the energy they have to serve the people in the community, and they make their money by doing a good job of it, without using cajoling advertisement.

It's hard work owning your own business , and they put in exponentially more work than they ask of anyone else (Mustafa puts in at least 11 hours a day, six days a week), but they love the bakery as an extension of themselves. It's a contagious love, too, because even though I've only been working a few days, I already care about it too.

Already this has been, hands-down, the best summer job I've ever had, and I still have a long way to go.

The Temple of Sibyl

Lately I've been getting interested in local history. Not necessarily local to me; at least not at first; but I began to get fascinated because I recently found a place to live in Birmingham, where I will be moving inside of two months.

Now that I know where I'm going to live in Birmingham, the specific address, I took a whole new look at that attractions map that UAB sent me in the mail almost a month ago. I found where my condo's going to be, and I circled it in red sharpie. Right under the circle I made, I noticed a very tiny drawing printed in the map labeled "Temple of Sibyl", and after looking it up on Google Maps, I found out it's only about a mile south of my room. It looked really interesting to me, even though there wasn't another word on the informative map about it. Who the heck was "Sibyl", anyhow?

After doing a lot of research I learned that the structure was built in 1929 by an great and eccentric ex-mayor of Birmingham named George Ward, on his estate on which he had built a huge circular home after an ancient temple in Tivoli, Italy (near Roam), originally built to the goddess of home and hearth, Vesta. So he named his home Vestavia, and it was so prominent in the landscape, that the entire area around his mansion became known as Vestavia Hills, and to this day, that's the name of the town. On the crest of a tall hill, like the crown of his estate, Ward built what he called Sibyl Temple, which was a beautiful gazebo that matched his home's roman architecture. A sibyl is a prophetess, and the particular one honored by this structure's inspiring building was the Tiburtine Sibyl, who prophesied in the temple next to Vesta's, but Vesta's temple is known for both Vesta and the Sibyl.

However, the structure wasn't just a gazebo. George Ward fully intended it to be his memorial headstone. He even built a crypt for himself in a cave underneath the hill of the structure, but he would never lay to rest there because of a change in the law. He was buried in a regular cemetery, and I bet his vengeful spirit is none too happy about it! But wait, it gets better.

After his death, George Ward's estate fell into disrepair, and the land was bought up. The entire house was demolished to make way for Vestavia Hills Baptists Church, a church named after a town named after the building they destroyed to make their church. In their infinite generosity and historical reverence, however, the church donated the gazebo to the town instead of destroying it too. The Temple of Sibyl was moved in the 1970's to it's current location, one mile south of my condo. Now it's a historical landmark and one of the town's most precious and important structures. It's the last remaining piece of George Ward's marvelous Vestavia.

You can't make this stuff up!

If you ever get a chance, I encourage you to google your home town. Knowing your local history makes your town so much richer to live in. I researched Fuquay--even little Fuquay-Varina!--and found some pretty amazing stuff. The internet makes it so easy, and the payoff is huge. I lived in Fuquay for most of my life, and I never took the time to read about it until now.

Diverse Graduate Responsibility

I've been a graduate of Campbell University for a couple weeks now, and, being that I am a graduate, I find that I now have a lot of responsibilities. I have to find a place to live. I have to make a budget. I have to get my health records. I have to get my balls fondled for a physical. I have to eat a lot of ice cream and play a lot of guitar. I have to write new songs and play the Wii with my little bro and also ride the Raleigh nightlife with my twin bro. I have to go on adventures. I have to laugh constantly. And I also have to read boring, dense, ridiculous tax forms. This is the life of a graduate. It's full of responsibility! I guess, along with my degree in Biochemistry, I also received a certain degree of freedom (with a minor in accountability).


I'm going to be moving to Alabama the first part of August. By then, I have to have my life packed in a suitcase.

SGA Afterthoughts

Student Government Association, or SGA, is how students at Campbell, and other university campuses, get to have a say in what happens at the University, including such matters Winter and Spring Formal (very important to many students), along and other important student events and minor policy.

In my time at Campbell, though, SGA has been pretty ineffective. Students don't really care about it because, no matter who gets elected president or what decisions are made, it never seems to change anyone's life very much.

Part of the problem is the apathy of the students. There's very little communication. As students, we want change sort of, but we're unwilling to make any shift in our lives that would place us at any SGA meetings. The only time students get informed at all is during elections, and normally from candidates in suits that corner us at dinner with stickers and business cards, which is resentful.

What I would like is a website accessible from Campbell's homepage with streaming video posts, or a Youtube channel, of all the speeches and lobbies that happen at SGA meetings, with labels, tags, and the ability to leave comments. I think it would have a number of effects:

1. Students could get informed about issues and the process in a no-pressure situation.
2. The information would be coming straight from the mouth of the issue supporters in SGA, not though the Campbell Times newspaper, which is often unreliable.
   
3. There would always be an available history of the evolution of issues in video archives.
   
4. Students could leave easy feedback in the form of comments to specific issues.
   
5. Campus politicians and lobbyists would be held accountable to the students for what they say during the meetings.

Technology makes this cheap and relatively easy, and I think it would make the meetings more transparent, which they ought to be. With such ease of involvement and the ability to really respond to issues as if you were there, I think SGA could be more effective, and more in the public mind of the students they serve.