A word of correction

My birthday is the 29th, not 30th. Curse you silly calendar!

The birthday no one cares about

Try walking into a bar and getting really excited about turning 22, no one cares much. But on this, the glorious day of my birth 22 years ago, I will tell you all 22 inconsequential and rather useless things about me.

1. My favorite program growing up was “Gospel Bill”

2. I would have been studying Paleontology right now were it not for growing up being force fed creationist propoganda. Alas, my subconcious knew that I could never actually touch Dino bones if I believed the tripe, so it steered me towards a much better field for a young earther- Archaeology (actually, it’s almost worse than paleontology).

3. I’m an evil evilutionist, humanist, feminist, liberal. Myself from four years ago would have hated me (and I would have loved making her uncomfortable)

4. A former middle school teacher once said “You’ll do anything to get a reaction out of people” in a hopeless tone of voice. He was right.

5. I had no idea wtf the CRC was before I got to Calvin and I thought that “predestination” was the prequel to the movie “Final Destination”

6. An ex boyfriend once wanted to see what my former rugby coach/ his English teacher would do if he told him that I beat him. My coach’s reaction was, “Don’t sign up for anything you can’t handle.”

7. I met my boyfriend’s little brother before I really met him. I was a sophomore in first year religion and told the group that I was questioning my faith and described myself as an agnostic. He jumped straight up in the air and every day from then on I tried really hard (when I actually came to class) to sit next to him b/c I found his reaction fascinating. Unfortunately, he always had friends around him.

8. My guilty pleasure is Demon Hunter. I have a crush on the lead singer’s voice (but not on him, he is not very attractive).

9. I got a plant for my birthday that I have named Simon Magnis (points if you know who he is!). I once had a plant named Iscariot who I was found of the singing the Showdown song to.

10. I want a pair of custom chucks. Badly.

11. I used to be an awesome speaker, and then I started playing rugby and getting concussions.

12. I was named after a character on the 80’s tv show “Airwolf”

13. I was supposed to be a boy. Coincidentally, there is a dude who attends Calvin who has the exact name I would have had if I had been a boy (first and last name). I think I would have been way hotter than him though.

14. After Latin and Greek I find it damn near impossible to pronounce the English “V” correctly. This

In Hat We Trust

makes it hard to say Dutch last names. Which makes it somewhat hard to function at Calvin.

15. I once found POD to be “hardcore”

16. Mrs. Degree-ers think I’m one of them. They get a rude awakening when I cuss them out when they try talking to me about how great it’ll be to never have to work (they are the engineer-seekers).

17. I am fond of stalking those with giant backpacks, fuzzy hats or fantastic homeschool t-shirts w/ the RA.

18. I hate rules, even though I usually follow them all of my own accord in my everyday behavior.

19. Calling something “mandatory” is a good way to get me to not show up.

20. I have gotten into fights with other Classics majors about whether Latin qualifies as “music” or “poetry” (It’s poetry, Dammit! Greek is music).

21. I didn’t go out for my 21st birthday.

22. No one even dares to argue or discuss the Bible with me ever since I destroyed a floormates cheesy theology using the original Greek. I’m kind of a bastard that way.

[expletive] Rob Bell

A very basic thing that probably everyone should know about me is that I hate Rob Bell. Actually, hate is too mild so let me go Biblical on you: I abhor Rob Bell.

It has nothing to do with theology.

It has everything to do with him bastardizing two languages.

It all started with a cool Greek word used rather frequently in the New Testament, pneuma (it means breath). The infatuation with using words from other languages to make yourself seem smarter (especially when talking about Jesus) isn’t just limiting to Calvin College. But Rob, a native English speaker who probably handles words like pneumonia, pneumatic and eugenics perfectly fine, decided that the world was just not ready for the awesomeness that was a translitterated Greek word (and that English speakers are retarded) so he changed the spelling to NOOMA.

CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

But really? A) This is insulting to English speakers everywhere. Most English speakers can handle “Pn” and “eu” sounds in their words. To think otherwise is kinda arrogant.       B) Greek is my language of choice and I just want to start punching people when they try to mess with it. It’s the language of the freakin’ gods, people!       C) Mega Churches are way creepy.

This man makes baby Jesus cry

So Fuck Rob Bell. Srsly.

Plus, his brother has a totally retarded “ministry.”

Kaydonthedinosaur finds religion

One of the (very few) perks of living on campus is that the laundry is free. The building I live in has washers and dryers in the basement and every once in awhile you can find the most fantastic things in there. Last year I found a campus safety work shirt (which goes over very well at parties) and a “Gator Farm” t-shirt in one.

But my latest find trumps everything. Everything!

It is a holographic guitar pick, look at it one way and it’s Jesus, then it changes to a cross which says “Jesus saves” within it.

Kitsch is so fabulous. I’m currently disregarding that some non-American Christians may feel that playing a guitar with the savior’s face may be blasphemous and that the ancient Romans would be confused and embarrassed for us concerning how we treat a horrible means of execution. This rocks!

Here’s where you all can purchase your own: Guitar picks.

Warning: The user may be struck down with lightning if he/she attempts to play Rob Zombie with this

Case Study: Creeper Luke

I first met creeper Luke at Passport, the summer before my first semester here at Calvin. During the tour of campus (my first ever) I happened to be decending some stairs and Creeper was at the bottom visibly checking me out. And no, he was asn’t trying to be subtle about it.

The basic rules for checking out people is this: Out of the corner of your eye, peripheral vision or if you absolutely must stare straight on at the person at least do so behind them so that they will not see you.

It was a rather disturbing experience but I later found out that he was homeschooled, so I let it go figuring that he would eventually learn how to behave correctly in social situations.

It has been several years later and this has not happened. As always happens at Calvin, you can never honestly think that you are ever done with a person. With a little over 4,000 students you would think that the chances of continually running into the same person over and over again would be somewhat small, but this is nowhere close to the truth. As a general rule, you should count on your least favorite people from either of the orientations living in the same dorm, being in all the same classes as you and frequenting your place of employment.

When I became a deskie, Creeper Luke lived in that dorm. I played a sport and Creeper Luke played it too right alongside me. I live in Hiemenga Hall and so does Creeper Luke, etc, etc. As with most former homeschooled males, he has problems with personal hygiene and wahing his clothes.

I thought I had broken free of him this year but no such luck, I saw him the other day in the hallway, staring at my hips for a good few minutes until I finally turned the corner.

Crossing over with Kaydon the Dinosaur

So, I am officially foraying into the Stargate world. Tonight I shall watch the movie, then get started on the tv show later. How far will this rabbit-hole of an investigation go?

Ongoing Investigation: The Stargate nerds in the Classics deptartment

Last interim I noticed a dearth of Stargate nerds in my class, but i shrugged it off as mere coincidence. But now my History of Greece and Rome class is full of them, and I mean full. One girl in the hall went so far as to describe the class as Geeks and Stargate. My question is, why? Sure, Stargate and the Classics are both nerdy but on totally different levels. I am the epitome of a Classics nerd and I am not a Stargate nerd (even though I was named after a character from a popular 80s a sci-fi show).

WTF are these nerds doing in the same department as me?

How to teach Science at a Christian College/University

Since for the core curriculum all Calvin students have to take a biology all types of people are mixed together in every first-year bio class. There are the indie scum who already fancy their biology skills to be superior to the average students because they recycle and compost, accountants who will love the math parts, pre-seminary, classics kids, English majors, etc. They all have differing levels of knowledge and interest in science and some may only pay enough attention to pass it and not put much effort in the class.

Adding to the already manifold challenges of the biology professors is the fact that there has always been a segment of Christianity that has been majorly uncomfortable with evolution. This segment will proclaim creation ex nihilo while in the same breath denouncing evolution because “something can’t come from nothing”. It’s a given that at least a few students in any class will have been innoculated against this godless and atheistic theory and many may yet be unsure about the validity of the theory.

To jump straight into science might scare these jumpy individuals. So what is a professor to do to make them comfortable with the scientific process and the theories that will come about through it? It must be something more than the typical “get the ‘everything good flows from God and since this subject is good it comes from God’ religious talk out of the way on the first day” speech but you really shouldn’t go the apologetic route of overtly trying to meld the two.

The best route is to spend the entire 50 minutes slowly reading through Genisis One. And interjecting your own commentary about big biological concepts and theology in between each verse. It will put everyone in a stupor an ease their fears about learning big, bad atheistic science. The real stuff can come later.

Actual Coke? It cannot be!

There was actual Coca-Cola at this years Cokes and Clubs! Rejoice oh lovers of Coke!

Oh, the mandatory meetings you will go to!

Everyone’s favorite dinosaur is making the difficult transition from off-campus living to the on-campus apartments. This means Calvin instituted rules, an RA, Barnabi (who perhaps won’t pester b/c there are less of them than there are in the dorms), overeager people and forced community.

I’m not into forced community, I (to use an overused phrase here at Calvin) am into intentional community. Which more or less means that I will hang out with whomever I please to, which excludes people who are overeager about things such as mud bowl.

I also have to get used to mandatory meetings (as well as other things like not getting to play with melting candles and the utter lack of alcoholic cider in my apartment).

It differs little from dorm mandatory meetings, there are introductions, the Barnabus team and the RD figure will wander it at some point, sign ups for Chaos Day/ Mudbowl, a reading of the general rules and more awkward introductions. Something similar to this will happen in every first class period too. It gets boring after awhile.