I do respect the one who invented automatic doors. It is no doubt this is a great invention and those automatic devices make our life easier especially for those with disability. However, I could never understand why the swing automatic doors at Raynor Library are often mad at me and don't let me through.

I couldn't remember how many times things like this happened. Not too many, but enough to make me upset. I have to explain something about the doors. Actually there are two doors which would open automatically on the opposite directions. That means when you walk from Raynor to Memorial, the door on the right side would open and when you come back, the door on the left side would work.

The first time I can recall about the tragedy was in last semester. I planned to get through the swing door which leads to bridge to Memorial library. The door was supposed to open when I walked close to it. I never doubted about that. But, you may guess what happened. Gee! What happened then was NOTHING happened. The door just shut and made no response to my advent. I just stood before the shut door, tongue-tied. Then I did something really stupid -- I pushed the door with my hand [ I must be out of my mind then ]. Surely it was no use!!! I gave up and started to looking around, hoping nobody noticed this. A girl following me looked at me in astonishment as if I were from the Mars [ I guess I am, no wonder I was so crazy about the SETI@home project ]. We both got stuck! The solution was I stepped back and she walked forward. Open sesame!!!

The second time was more weird. Janet [ another Chinese girl ] and I went for bridge to get some snack. We walked side by side and I thought we were powerful enough to push the door. We did push one door open, but not the one on our lane. Yep, the door on the left side opened while the one before our noses was still shut. "Janet, I guess we'd better start to pray", I said. So we got through for God's sake.

Sometimes I wonder if the doors don't work for me all the time, what am I going to do? I could do nothing but circumventing. Technology does facilitate us a lot, but less options are left for us. Maybe there should be a manual switch for some Martians, like me.