How long will this new fad last?

On a lark tonight I signed up for Twitter. I wonder how long it will take me to get bored with something that it seems like only hipsters use?

Follow me if you want (sometimes i have funny one-liners, I swear):

http://twitter.com/Kaydon_the_dino

Apparently I will feel rejected if I am not included in the Senior Scramble

Have I mentioned yet how fantastic it is that I am spending my last semester of Calvin off campus? This is because of something called the senior scramble, in which all seniors that have even a slight semblance  of a serious relationship get engaged in a hurry before graduation. This is because there are no CRC Christian people outside of Calvin college (if we ignore the Pella, Iowa area, all of Grand Rapids and all the other feeder areas/schools around the country). But the boy who makes me food is bravely enduring all the questions involving our relationship. I swear, questions are buzzing more around our relationship than anything else I have ever done in my life (which may mean I need to start pole dancing or swollowing swords). Why people are so concerned with my relationship status I shall never know, I never thought we were too terribly interesting as a couple (more fun than your typical high-stress Calvin relationship though).

The exchanges typically go something like this:

Typical Calvin person: I haven’t seen Katie in awhile…are you two still together?
Boy: Yes, but she is in the UK right now.
Calvie: Oh, ok, you engaged yet?
Boy: No
Calvie: Are you going to fly over?
Boy: No
Calvie: You have a ring, right?
Boy: No
Calvie: So she is not the one.
Boy: I never said that
Calvie: So you are getting a ring and going to propose right before graduation?
Boy: No
Calvie: Kinda a risk taker then?
Boy: What??
Calvie: What if she thinks you don’t want her?
[boy walks away]

Why I shall feel rejected if I do not recieve a shiny rock before graduation (which I won’t even be around for) is beyond me.

But if I were planning a wedding here is how it would go:

This, with the headpiece below, a veil and some gloves would guarentee that I would be like a white ninja at my wedding

the headpiece

Oh, and did I mention that they make dresses with LED lights in them? I will work those into the entire ensemble.

Dear Bridesmaids, do you hate me yet?

Alernative dress idea

And since every event needs a soundtrack, here is the list for the dinosaur/boy-who-makes-food wedding of doom (soundtrack also available as the table favor):

Crazy Daisy- Neon Horse
Its so cold in the D-Tbaby
Low-Flo Rida
I Still got you Ice Cream-Pissed Jeans
I can never be your lover-Still Remains (for the RA and myself)

This is why I can never have a proper wedding

How to not be invited to Bible Study

Last entry I eluded to how much of a bastard I am and I have proof of this.

Every dorm on campus has a community bathroom, which you use for number 2 (so you don’t stink up your whole suite) and if you need to use a bathtub, which has something called the CJ log. Clever, no? In this log the floor can discuss stuff or just shoot the breeze and its all anonymous (except my handwriting is very unique). Usually the log on my floor went something like this:

-Why are boys so dumb?

-I don’t know. lol

-Now guys, God made them special

-yeah, “special”

-I hate the rain!

-Yeah!

-All nighters suck

So, its usually just inane drivel, but people still comment on it anyway. But every once in awhile the girls would actually manage to comment on something of interest…which I usually ended up killing, example:

me: so have you all heard about how they are publishing the gospel of Judas

[some comments, some inane and off-topic, some thoughtful. Most implying that Judas was a bad dude]

me: The treatment of Judas has always bothered me. I mean, Christianity needed him more than it needed even Paul. I’m sure he must have gotten some sort of kickback from God or something.

…and I was the thread killer that day.

Generally, I am the single worst person to have in a discussion surrounding the Bible anyway, because I know Greek and you best be sure that I will make sure you know it. I also don’t take shit like using the Old Testament against stuff like Gay marriage but then wearing mixed fabrics and mixing meat and dairy lightly. In short, you better know you stuff, because if you don’t I will thrash you without mercy. I think of it as my public service to Christianity at large but it makes me a super huge bastard.

One fine afternoon the discussion in the CJ log turned to the topic of lust. One girl on the floor whose writing was also distinctive wrote a long sermonette about how you cannot have attraction without lust and hence we are all sinners if we are in romantic relationships (can you guess she had never had a relationship ever?) and quoted the verse where Jesus states that anyone who had even looked at a woman with lust had committed adultery.

I seized on that. I wrote a lengthy rebuttal where I destroyed her argument based on the word lust. You see, in the verse she quoted the Greek word translated as “lust” has the implication of a “movement toward” the intended. So, only if you were to make plans to hook up with the person in question would that verse really apply, not just your run of the mill “Dang, his muscles are nice” thought.It was a great pity, as that girl at that time was applying to be the spiritual leader of the dorm.

Nobody else for the rest of the year would discuss anything Biblical with me and nobody invited me to a Bible stidy all year. And the CJ log returned to inane drivel for the rest of the semester. A little Greek and Textual Criticism goes a long way if your purpose is to destroy the weak pet doctrines of others.

In short, I am a bastard.

Is it just me, or does Adam never seem to be looking Eve in the eye?

You know you go to Calvin when you experience academic whiplash at least 4 times a week

Sorry for the looooooong departure from the blog, I had a three week Easter Holiday which I spent travelling around England and Wales (jealous yet? Have I mentioned that I only have one written final this semester too?).

After I got back Sunday night I threw myself into a paper on Shamanism in the Archaeological Record that I was working on. It’s a first year class at York St. John and the lecturer asked that we use at least 4 academic sources and, because I am something of a bastard (more on that later, I promised), I decided to be over the top academic. I admit that slogging through a journal article on Cognitive Evolution in The Cambridge Archaeological Review after three weeks of doing nothing but looking at pretty sunsets and playing hide and seek in old Roman Forts was a bit of a brain gang-bang, but I got through it and properly cited it and everything.

What will I be working on this evening for the two Calvin courses I am taking this semester? Why, I shall be writing a letter to Charles I of England summarizing the Grand Remonstrance. I shall be writing a letter to a dead guy summarizing something that he read in his own lifetime and disregarded. I could deal with answering a query like “Could the civil war have been avoided if Charles had made the changes Parliament wanted?” but I just cannot bring myself to write a letter to a dead historical figure like I’m in grade school again.

But if you go to Calvin College you are quite used to jumping from wading through dense journal articles and other way hard stuff and then that same day doing something similar to what your nephew is struggling with in second grade. My freshman year I went from my five credit greek class (which had myself and the rest of my class balancing the pros and cons of becoming biochem majors) and wrestling with the subleties of the Genetive case to going to Prelude and discussing the all important questions in modern Christianity: chief among them, “If Christianity were a parking garage where would you be parked?” and “What if your career is not your vocation?”

I almost failed Prelude because I admitted that I care little for parking garages and that I would rather be going back to what I am at college to learn (mainly the Genetive case), thank you very much random ass bank employee who teaches this class and wonders aloud whether his watching “American Chopper” will cause his three year old to grow up to be a felon.

Its maddening, frustrating beyond words and I really haven’t found a way to cope with it during my four years, other than being overly snarky.

Dear Charles, stop being a douche. Love, Kaydon

True Love Waits: Chapter one

[I have been a slacker in writing my christian romance novel, but I have recently finished the draft to chapter one: Michael's story. Enjoy!]

True Love Waits [Alternate title: Unborn Babies' True Love Waits in Africa and is better than Atonement Child]

Chapter one: Michael’s story

Michael Tait that morning was on his knees, as he always was before he started his day. He has carefully tied his shoulder-length dark brunette hair back to not distract him during prayer. It was hard not to be distracted though when it was blazing hot before the sun had even risen. He felt beads of sweat roll from the base of his neck and down to his chest underneath his white tank top.

He had been taught by his mother to pray daily like that on a daily basis but he hadn’t fully understood the importance of it in his life until three years ago. That year he was supposed to graduate from Calvin College that year with his B.A. in Religion when his father fell ill. Michael had rushed home to Grand Haven to spend the last week of his father’s life by his side. As his father was breathing his last he asked Michael how his walk with God was.

That had given Michael pause, he hadn’t really thought of it.

“I’m getting my degree in religion, dad.” He had said.

His dad weakly shook his head, “Knowledge doesn’t matter without the relationship.”
That sentence had rocked Michael’s world. Of course at first, his human pride rejected it. But love won out. He promised his father that he would begin praying again and let God speak to him. Now, three years later Michael was a strong man of God. The Lord was training him more and more each day to accept the burden that he had placed upon his life. But, even though the Lord surely knew the desires of his heart, he was lacking one thing he so desperately wanted, a wife.

Three years ago when his father was dying he was engaged to be married to a fellow religion major, Linda VanderLeest. She was the daughter of one of the most prestigious families in town. In addition to having all the money and influence she wanted she was also stunningly beautiful. Her long hair, the color of the corn harvest in the countryside just outside of Grand Rapids, fell to her mid back in waves and her pale skin offset her icy blue eyes. She was a jogger too, and it showed in her figure.

She and Michael had hit it off on a floor date their freshman year. She had been impressed by his skills in ultimate Frisbee and he had simply been left speechless by her beauty. By the end of their sophomore year they were engaged. All his friends thought him the luckiest man in the world and so had Linda herself-her vanity had known no bounds. By his senior year Michael knew he had to break it off, it was getting too hard to always be the second actor in the act that Linda put on to show everyone how perfect her life was. It was the hardest thing he had ever done.

After that Michael realized that he needed to seriously mature before he ever again got into another relationship. He had almost made a huge mistake because he had been too taken with unimportant things like beauty.

“And Lord, please bless me with the maturity to handle life’s ups and downs and to grow into the man you want me to be,” he said, closing his prayer.

He knew he was on the right path to maturity now. His co-workers had thought him crazy when he took a two week vacation to volunteer in an orphanage in Kenya with his church. He had a good job at Zondervan Publishing, but with the recent economic downturn there was talk of lay-offs and everybody was working extra hard to prove their value to the company. The current conditions made Michael’s vacation look like employment suicide. But Michael knew that the Lord was moving him to do his work in Kenya and would provide.

The work was hard, he arose each morning before the sun was up and only spent a few minutes by himself before walking down the dirty street to the orphanage. It hurt him to pass the piles of refuse in the streets and to hear the cries of hungry children on his way each morning but he was strengthened when he reminded himself that he was making the village a better place and making the villagers lives better.

The benefits of having no hair

If you read my travel blog, you already know that I shaved my head. And there are a lot more benefits to it and I’m thinking of being permenately bald because of them.

• Showers are uber fast now. This is uber good because random hairs on the walls of the community shower creep me out. And I don’t need to wait for my hair to dry.
• I don’t have to worry about frizzy hair in damp England.
• The other day I walked into the shop to buy mousse, I got to the hair care aisle and was like, “Wait a minute!” and I bought some more canned peaches instead (the peaches canned in grape juice are the best!)
• No bad hair days for awhile
• I have always been a fan of hats, but sadly have had few opportunities to wear them often…not anymore!
• My search for an awesome hat lead me to a Scouser who said he loved my accent.
• Everyone thinks I’m waaaaay cooler and way more of a rebel than I actually am.
• How else was I supposed to find out that my head was not horribly misshapen from all those years of rugby?

• You can totally go incognito for a few hours-days since people are used to identifying me by my hair.

It rocks.

Britain is so…post something!

Alright, so a few weeks ago I posted on my other blog that I had not met one atheist in my three weeks in big, scary post-Christian England. That has now changed, I met one. But regardless of the lack of atheists it is still a fact that people over here are a far cry from your typical Calvin kid back in GR…like, way different.

This has been pointed out several times in devotionals before our Calvin classes here that there is no way of even knowing that the people we engage in conversation here at YSJ even come from a Christian background! *shock! horrors!* To be honest, I only listened to one devotional and it was like that, I am too busy staring out at the ever-overcast skies to take heed of religious posturing and talk about being the minority (have I mentioned there’s not even any bloody seperation of church and state over here? Minority my ass!).

Also, I don’t have to sit through a load of creation, fall, redemption, apologetics, or gross misunderstandings of other religions in the religion classes everyday! Holy cow, fancy that, learning about Pagan and New Age beliefs from guest lecturing Pagans and New Agers! I was telling one of my Calvin profs about my Paganism and New Age class during our excursion this weekend and she was amazed, and then proceeded to ask me if they were going to have a token Christian come in and talk about his/her religion…. whut?

Also, there is a bar on campus.

I love it here. And I’m sorry for not posting more often, right now I’m dealing with being fucked up the ass by incompetent old Calvin College, and the stress is killing me.

A Pair of Very Badly Dressed Mormon missionaries

So in the world of the Midwest and Bible Belt saying that so-and-so goes to a Christian college is a way of assuring the other person that the individual you are speaking about is respectable and a good person. In English speak though it apparently means, “Oy, these kids want to come over and convert you, will that be alright?”

So when my partner and I walked up to the house of an older couple that we were to interview for our British culture class the gentleman met us at his gate and said, “Before you come in I must ask, what religion are you?” After a few awkward words explaining the CRC/trying to say that conversion was not our intention (actually, I let my partner handle this, as a non-believer trying to convert them might have blown their minds) we were let in, where we had to deal with the lady of the house.

She assured us that we were not going to convert her from Catholicism, nor her husband from the Methodist Church. For the first ten minutes they still believed that we were not Mormons nor Jehovah’s Witnesses, but still wanted to convert them to something called the Reformed Church. After their fears were abated they were quite brilliant and told us all that we wanted to know about their lives and opinions. It was fantastic.

It was hilarious/ pretty embarrassing at the same time.

Plus, I think I’d make I shitty Mormon… I like archaeology too much.

York is turning me Dutch

Once upon a time I had quite a lot of money saved for my semester in York…then Calvin screwed me out of it. So to save money I have started handwashing my clothes…in my sink and drying them on my radiator.

Yep, I am now officially too cheap to pay 2 pound 60 for washing and drying clothes.

Dutch lads, eat your heart out.

Kaydon writes a Christian Romance (part 1)

Between the boredom of not being able to go to the Gallery on St. John’s night because I would die walking there in the cold (The first time it majorly snows in 20+ years in York and I have to be here?!) and being in a trying godless enviroment in the UK (have you seen those atheist bus signs? The nerve of outspoken nonbelievers!), I have written the most spellbinding Christian Romance ever. After googling “Christian Romance” (which is the only research I have done for my foray into the Christian Romance publishing industry) I found a really hilarious article about the dangers of Christian Romance. Upon further perusing this website I discovered that these fine folks, in addition to not liking Christian Romance novels, favored a system of courtship wherein the female in the relationship has no idea the relationship is going on basically until the marriage because her parents have been meeting with the dude behind the scenes for many, many months. And then the parents are like, “Surprise! We think he is perfect for you. Would you like him?” And usually the female is so sheltered and doesn’t know any other dudes anyway and is so desperate for sexual contact marriage that she is like, “Omg, Yes!”.

These folks are clearly underserved in the Christian Romance novel department. But, unfortunately, you can only make the heroine in a novel, even a Christian romance novel, only so clueless. So, these people will continue to go underserved, but it’s really their own damn fault for being sooooooo creepy about things (if Frank Peretti ever writes a romance that has demons vying for the souls of the nearly Christian lovers then maybe…).

Anyways, here’s my brainstorming for the novel:

The Heroine: Must be plain. But underneath her plainness she must have a beautiful interior with a passion for Jesus. Always, always, always if you must have a main character who starts off as an unbeliever it must be the male (please see that movie where Mandy Moore is dying of cancer of something and this dude totally wants her in high school but she listens to Third Day or whatever while he is off headbanging to Korn and then he finds the church and they get married and then she dies).

Or, if she is very beautiful, she must have a flaw which is preventing her from finding Mr. Right. These can include distance from civilization (found mainly in historical romances or in Amish communities), pride, being too picky or falling for jerks (see every romantic comedy ever made).

For purposes of the Christian Romance novel, she doesn’t have a body. If you must allude to her body you must never go into detail but stick with generalities like thin or plump, even a word like curvy might be considered too racy.

Most importantly, she must be you. That’s right, feel free to make to embody all your good qualities or how you imagine yourself to be in your fantasies.

The Hero: You may describe him from the shoulders up, and by that I mean he has strong shoulders. The Hero, while he may be thin, is not allowed to the gangly, weak or body, or small. He is also not allowed to be disabled. His tragic flaw may be that he his unchurched, has had sex before, or his father never really loved him as a child.

The plot and goal: The goal of course is marriage. But how should they meet? I think Missions Trip love is something not satisfactorily explored by anyone other than they guy who writes “Stuff Christians Like” (and I am an expert in Short Term Missions Trips, so there you go).  So it our two future lovers will meet on a Missions Trip to Kenya (I know all about Kenya, for this annoying girl I am friends with on Facebook went there and was all like, “Zomg! I must advance God’s kingdom here by getting cornrows!”) where they will be drawn to the compassion displayed by each other as they work together in a Children’s Hospital caring for babies dying from AIDs. When they return to the states, they not only must deal with the uncomfortableness they feel about the materialistic and apithetic western world around them but they must deal with their own purity. True love waits…for marriage.

Title: True Loves Waits (alternative title: Unborn Babies’ True Love Waits in Africa)

Backcover blub: Michael Tait could never forget the first time he saw, really saw, Rachel VanderCamp. She was cradling a dying infant in her arms with a love that was radiating from her. He had never really considered her the woman for him, even though they had spent their entire youths attending Madison Square CRC with their families and later joined the young adults group at Mars Hill, that all changed those 2 weeks he spent with her in Kenya. Thir love blossoms on Safari, but once they get back to Grand Rapids, will the stresses and materialism of the modern world tear them apart…or bring them together in dangerous and unhealthy ways?

[it is a well know fact that the last line of the backcover blurb must end in a question]

The Hook (besides my phenomenal writing skills): In case you didn’t get it, it is an interracial romance.

The few few chapters coming soon…

Dear Michael Tait, please get back together with DC Talk and have my babies. Love, Kaydon